And because
its first knowledge is imperfect by reason of not being experienced nor
indoctrinated, small goods seem to it great. Wherefore we see children
desire most greatly an apple, and then proceeding further on desire a
bird, and then further yet desire fine raiment, and then a horse, and
then a woman, and then, riches not great, and then greater and greater.
And this befalls because in none of these things it finds that which it
goes seeking, and thinks to find it further on. By which it may be seen
that one desirable stands before another in the eyes of our soul in a
fashion as it were pyramidal, for the smallest at first covers the whole
of them, and is as it were the apex of the highest desirable, which is
God, as it were the base of all; so that the further we go from the apex
toward the base the desirables appear greater; and this is the reason why
human desires become wider one after the other. Verily this way is lost
through error as the roads of earth are; for as from one city to another
there is of necessity one best and straightest way, and one that always
leads farther from it, that is, the one which goes elsewhere, and many
others, some less roundabout and some less direct, so in human life are
divers roads whereof one is the truest and another the most deceitful,
and certain ones less deceitful, and certain less true.
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