על החלומות, ספר א י״זOn Dreams, Book I 17
א׳
1[102] Let what has been said and other considerations of the same kind suffice for the self-satisfied pedantic professors of literalism, and let us in accordance with the rules of allegory make such remarks on this passage as are appropriate. Well, then, we say that a garment is a figure for rational speech. For clothing keeps off the mischiefs that are wont to befall the body from frost and heat; it conceals nature’s secret parts; and the raiment is a fitting adornment to the person.
ב׳
2[103] In like manner, rational speech was bestowed on man by God as the best of gifts. First of all, it is a weapon of defence against those who threaten him with violence. For as nature has fortified other living creatures each with appropriate means of guarding themselves whereby they may beat off those who attempt to do them an injury, so has she given to man a most strong redoubt and impregnable fort in rational speech. Grasping this with all his might as a soldier does his weapons, he will have a body-guard meeting his every need. Having this to fight before him, he will be able to ward off the hurts which his enemies would fain inflict upon him.
ג׳
3[104] In the second place, rational speech is a most necessary covering for matters of shame and reproach; it has great ability to conceal and hide up men’s sins. Thirdly, it serves as an adornment of the whole life: for this it is that makes each one of us better and leads every man to something higher.
ד׳
4[105] But there are some men who—mischievous pests that they are —actually hold rational speech in pawn, and rob its possessors of it, and, when they ought to foster its growth, cut it utterly down, like those who ravage the fields of their enemies and endeavour to destroy both the wheat and the other crops, which if left alone would have been a great boon to the consumers.
ה׳
5[106] What I mean is that there are some who wage an unrelenting war against the rational nature, men who cut down to the ground its first shoots, and squeeze the life out of its earliest growths, so rendering it to all intents and purposes barren and unproductive of noble doings.
ו׳
6[107] For there are times when, seeing it bent with irresistible impulse on education and smitten with a passionate love of the truths which philosophy has discovered, they conceive a jealous and malicious fear lest, grandly inspired and highly exalted, it should sweep like a torrent over their hair-splittings and plausible inventions for the overthrow of truth, and by their perversions of art change the direction of its current, providing a channel leading to low and illiberal arts and sciences. Not infrequently they sterilize and block it up, and leave its natural greatness fallow and unfruitful, like bad guardians of orphans who let a rich and fertile farm become a wilderness. In fact, void of pity beyond all men, they are not ashamed to strip a man of his only garment, reason; for it says “this is all he has to put round him” (Ex. 22:27).
ז׳
7[108] What is this save reason? For as neighing is peculiar to a horse, and barking to a dog, and lowing to a cow, and roaring to a lion, so is speech and reason itself to man. For with this has man, the dearest to God of all living creatures, been dowered as specially his own, to be his stronghold, protection, armour, wall.