e sight, which,
although it may not be the immediate cause of the will, is yet the
primal and principal cause.

CIC. What do you mean by this last saying?

TANS. I mean that it is not the figure or the conception, sensibly or
intelligently represented, which of itself moves us; because while one
stands beholding the figure manifested to the eyes, he does not yet
arrive at loving; but from that instant that the soul conceives within
itself that figure, not visible, but thinkable; no longer dividual, but
individual; no longer classed among things in general, but among things
good and beautiful; then immediately love is born. Now this is the
seeing, from which the soul desires to divert the eyes of her thoughts.
Here the sight usually moves the affection to a greater love than the
love of that which is seen; for, as I have just said, it always
considers, through the universal knowledge that it holds of the
beautiful and the good, that, besides the degrees of known conceptions
of goodness and beauty, there are others and yet others _ad infinitum_.

CIC. How is it that after we become informed of that conception of the
beautiful which is begotten in the soul, we yet desire to satisfy the
exterior vision?

TANS. From this, that the soul would ever love that which it loves, and
ever see that which it sees. Therefore she wills that, the conception
which has been produced in her through seeing, should not become
weakened, enervated and lost; but would ever see more and more, and that
which becomes obscure in the interior affection, should be frequently
brightened by the exterior aspect, which as it is the principle of
being, must also be the principle of conservation. This results
proportionately in the act of understanding and of considering, for as
the sight has reference to visible things, so has the intellect to
intelligible things. I believe now that you understand to what end and
in what manner the soul tends, when she says "repress the sight."

CIC. I understand very well. Now continue to unfold what happens to
these thoughts.

TANS. Now follows the disagreement between the mother and the aforesaid
children, who having, contrary to her orders, opened their eyes, and,
having fixed them on the splendour of the object, they remained in
company with the heart.

22.

Cruel sons are ye to me, me whom ye left
Still farther to exasperate my pain;
And ever without cease ye weary me,
Taking away from me