hat in things divine we have more love than knowledge?

TANS. We desire to see, because in some way we perceive the value of
seeing. We are aware that, through the act of seeing, beautiful things
offer themselves to us; and therefore we desire beautiful things.

CIC. We desire the beautiful and the good; but seeing is not beautiful
nor good; rather is it the touchstone or light by which we see, not only
the beautiful and good, but also the evil and bad. Therefore it seems to
me that seeing may be equally beautiful or good, as the thing seen may
be white or black. If, then, the sight, which is an act, is not
beautiful nor good, how can it fall into desire?

TANS. If not for itself, yet certainly for some other reason, it is
desired, seeing that there can be no apprehension of that other without
it.

CIC. What wilt thou say, if that other is not within the knowledge of
the senses nor of the intellect? How, I say, can that be desired which
is not seen, if there is no knowledge whatever of it--if towards it
neither the intellect nor the sense has exercised any act whatever; but,
on the contrary, it is even dubious whether it be intellectual or
sensuous, whether a thing corporeal or incorporeal, whether it be one or
two or more, or of one fashion or of another?

TANS. I answer, that in the sense and the intellect there is one desire
and one impulse to the sensuous in general; because the intellect will
hear the whole truth, so that it may learn all that is beautiful or good
intelligently; the power of the senses will inform itself of all that is
sensuous, so that it may know all that is good and beautiful in the
world of the senses. Hence it follows that not less do we desire to see
things unknown and unseen than those known and seen. And from this it
does not follow that the desire does not proceed from cognition, and
that we desire something that is not known; but I say that it is certain
and sure that we do not desire unknown things. Because, if they be
occult as to particulars, they are not occult as to generals; as in the
entire visual power is found the whole of the visible appositely, and in
the intellect all the intelligible. Therefore, as the inclination to the
act lies in its appropriateness, the result is that both these powers
incline towards the universal action, as to a thing naturally
comprehended as good. The soul, then, did not speak to the deaf or the
blind when she counselled her thoughts to repress th