383. After him arose the second orator to reveal by elegance of speech the origin of beauty. He said: "I have heard that the origin of beauty is love, but I do not agree with that opinion. Who among men knows what love is? Who has contemplated it with any idea of thought? Who has seen it with his eye? Tell me where it is. I assert, on the other hand, that wisdom is the origin of beauty--in women, wisdom inmostly latent and concealed, in men, wisdom open and standing forth. Whence is man a man but from wisdom? Were he not a man from this, he would be a statue or a picture. What does a maiden give attention to in a young man but the nature of his wisdom? And what does a young man give attention to in a maiden but the nature of her affection for his wisdom? By wisdom I mean genuine morality because this is the wisdom of life. Hence it is, that when latent wisdom approaches and embraces open wisdom, as it does interiorly in the spirit of each of them, they kiss each other and are conjoined, this being what is called love. Then they appear to each other as beauties. In a word, wisdom is as the light or splendor of fire, which touches the eyes, and as it touches, forms beauty."