Therefore springs up, in fashion of a shoot,
Doubt at the foot of truth, and this is nature
Which to the top from height to height impels us."[149]
The contradiction, as it seems to us, resolves itself into an essential,
easily apprehensible, if mystical, unity. Dante at first gave himself to
the study of the sciences (after he had lost the simple, unquestioning
faith of youth) as the means of arriving at certainty. From the root of
every truth to which he attained sprang this sucker (_rampollo_) of
doubt, drawing out of it the very sap of its life. In this way was
Philosophy truly an adversary of his soul, and the reason of his remorse
for fruitless studies which drew him away from the one that alone was and
could be fruitful is obvious enough. But by and by out of the very doubt
came the sweetness[150] of a higher and truer insight. He became aware
that there were "things in heaven and earth undreamt of in your
philosophy," as another doubter said, who had just finished _his_
studies, but could not find his way out of the scepticism they engendered
as Dante did.
"Insane is he who hopeth that our reason
Can traverse the illimitable way
Which the one Substance in three Persons follows!
Mortals, remain contented at the _Quia_;
For, if ye had been able to see all,
No need there were [had been] for Mary to bring forth.
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