OF SAINTHOOD 



talking such nonsense that the unbe- 

 liever, perceiving him to be as wide 

 from the mark as east from west, can 

 hardly restrain himself from laughing." 



Augustine held what may be re- 

 garded as a pristine faith in Nature as 

 a manifestation of the divine. 



This pristine theistic view is founded 

 on passages in Genesis, especially Gen- 

 esis 2:15 and Genesis 3 : 19. These 

 passages show that Nature, typified by 

 the Garden, gives man his sustenance, 

 and yet, as it has to be won by the 

 sweat of the brow, man's energy or art 

 must work with Nature. These pas- 

 sages, as Bishop Boyd-Carpenter ob- 

 serves in his inspiring studies of Dante, 

 are also the foundation of the famous 

 lines in the "Divine Comedy" in which 

 the poet expresses the relation between 

 the theistic view of Nature and scien- 

 tific or philosophical inquiry. 

 9 



