========================================================================
  CONFESSIONS - BOOK VII - CHAPTER XVII
  by St. Augustine
========================================================================

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------


------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

23. And I marveled that I now loved thee, and no fantasm in thy stead,
and yet I was not stable enough to enjoy my God steadily. Instead I was
transported to thee by thy beauty, and then presently torn away from
thee by my own weight, sinking with grief into these lower things. This
weight was carnal habit. But thy memory dwelt with me, and I never
doubted in the least that there was One for me to cleave to; but I was
not yet ready to cleave to thee firmly. For the body which is corrupted
presses down the soul, and the earthly dwelling weighs down the mind,
which muses upon many things.[211] My greatest certainty was that \"the
invisible things of thine from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even thy eternal
power and Godhead.\"[212] For when I inquired how it was that I could
appreciate the beauty of bodies, both celestial and terrestrial; and
what it was that supported me in making correct judgments about things
mutable; and when I concluded, \"This ought to be thus; this ought not\"
--then when I inquired how it was that I could make such judgments
(since I did, in fact, make them), I realized that I had found the
unchangeable and true eternity of truth above my changeable mind.

And thus by degrees I was led upward from bodies to the soul which
perceives them by means of the bodily senses, and from there on to the
soul\\

========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/st-augustine/confessions-book-vii-chapter-xvii/
========================================================================