WISDOM IS NONE THE LESS HAPPY FOR BEING UNCONSCIOUS OF ITSELF.
9. It may further be objected that the wise man might lose consciousness, if overwhelmed by disease, or the malice of magic. Would he still remain happy? Either he will remain virtuous, being only fallen asleep; in which case he might continue to be happy, since no .one claims he must lose happiness because of sleep, inasmuch as no reckoning of the time spent in this condition is kept, and as he is none the less considered happy for life. On the other hand, if unconsciousness be held to terminate virtue, the question at issue is given up; for, supposing that he continues to be virtuous, the question at issue was, whether he remain happy so long as he remains virtuous. It might indeed still be objected that he cannot be happy if he remain virtuous without feeling it, without acting in conformity with virtue. Our answer is that a man would not be any less handsome or healthy for being so unconsciously. Likewise, he would not be any less wise merely for lack of consciousness thereof.
THOUGH HAPPINESS IS ACTUALIZED WISDOM WE DO NOT LOSE IT WHEN UNCONSCIOUS. WE DO NOT LOSE IT BECAUSE WE OURSELVES ARE ACTUALIZATIONS OF INTELLIGENCE.
Once more it may be objected that it is essential to wisdom to be self-conscious, for happiness resides only in actualized wisdom. This objection would hold if reason and wisdom were incidentals. But if the hypostatic substance of wisdom consist in an essence (being), or rather, in being itself, and if this being do not perish during sleep, nor during unconsciousness, if consequently the activity of being continue to subsist in him; if by its very nature this (being) ceaselessly watch, then the virtuous man must even in this state (of sleep or unconsciousness), continue to exercise his activity. Besides, this activity is ignored only by one part of himself, and not by himself entirely. Thus during the operation of the actualization of growth, the perception of its activity is not by his sensibility transmitted to the rest of the man. If our personality were constituted by this actualization of growth, we would act simultaneously with it; but we are not this actualization, but that of the intellectual principle, and that is why we are active simultaneously with this (divine intellectual activity).