Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury

CHAPTER XIII

BUT everything which is anyhow comprehended in place or time, is less than that which no law of place or time restraineth. Since then there is nothing greater than Thou, no place or time comprehendeth Thee, but Thou art everywhere and always: and of Thee alone can it be said Thou alone art uncircumscribed and eternal. How then are other spirits called uncircumscribed and eternal? Thou indeed art alone eternal; because Thou alone of all beings neither beginnest nor ceasest to be. But how art Thou alone uncircumscribed? May we say that the created spirit in comparison of Thee is circumscribed, though in comparison of the body, uncircumscribed? For the body is al together circumscribed, since it is altogether in some certain place, and cannot be at the same time in any other; and this we see only in what is of the nature of body. That again is uncircumscribed, which is altogether in all places at the same time; and this is conceived to be true of Thee only. But that is at once circum scribed and uncircumscribed which being wholly in some certain place, can be at the same time wholly elsewhere; and this we know to be true of created spirits. For if the soul were not wholly in every member of its body, it would not be able wholly to have feeling in every 27member.²⁷²⁷   That is, when I feel, for example, a pain in my finger, it is I that feel it; I am not conscious of a division in my consciousness. The body is divided into parts, but not the consciousness: the finger has not a consciousness of its own, distinct from that of the next finger, but I, one and the same consciousness, am conscious of feelings now in one finger, now in another. This remains true, notwithstanding the facts now known, but unknown to St Anselm, which show that particular kinds of consciousness are connected with particular parts of the brain; so that injury to, or removal of a particular part of the brain makes one incapable of a certain kind of consciousness. For despite this fact, the consciousness is not divided into parts one outside of another; the consciousness is one at each moment; the division into parts, one out side of the other, is only true of the brain, which by experiments (not by immediate consciousness) we find to be bound up with our consciousness. We are not directly conscious of our brains at all; and for many centuries it was held to be uncertain whether the brain was the organ of consciousness or not. Thou then, O Lord, art in a sense wherein it is true of nothing else, at once uncircumscribed and eternal; and yet other spirits also are uncircumscribed and eternal.