Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.

Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.

Thought is what we start from: the simple, intimate, immediate datum. Matter is the inferred thing, the mystery.

Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.