De Fuga Et Inventione

And the lawgiver appears to me to be recommending most manifestly that kind of discovery which is not preceded by any search, in the following words, "When the Lord thy God shall lead thee into the land which he swore to thy fathers that he would give to thee, large and beautiful cities which thou buildest not, houses full of all good things which thou filledst not, cisterns hewn out of the quarries which thou hewedst not, vineyards and olive gardens which thou plantedst not." [*](Deuteronomy vi. 10. )

You see here the ungrudging abundance of all the great blessings which are ready, and poured forth for man’s possession and enjoyment. And the generic virtues are here likened to cities, because they are of the most comprehensive kind; and the specific virtues are likened to houses, because they are contracted into a narrower circle; and the souls of a good disposition are likened to cisterns, which are well inclined to receive wisdom, as the cisterns are calculated to receive water; and the improvement, and growth, and production of fruit, are compared to vineyards and olive gardens; and the fruit of knowledge is a life of contemplation, which produces unmixed joy, equal to that which proceeds from wine; and a light appreciable only by the intellect, as if from a flame of which oil is the nourishment.

Having now said thus much on the subject of discovery, we will proceed in due order to what comes next in the context. Moses proceeds, "Therefore the angel of the Lord found her sitting by a fountain of water." Now a fountain is spoken of in many senses; in one manner our mind is meant by a fountain, in another the rational habit and instruction; in a third sense a bad disposition is intimated; in a fourth sense a good disposition, the contrary of the preceding; in a fifth sense, the Creator and Father of the universe is himself thus spoken of in a figure; [*](Deuteronomy vi. 10. )