Augustine of Hippo

What, therefore, if the soul and spirit of a human being is given by God himself, whenever it is given; and given, too, by propagation from its own kind? Now this is a position which I neither maintain nor refute. Nevertheless, if it must be defended or confuted, I certainly recommend its being done by clear and certain proofs. Nor do I deserve to be compared with senseless cattle because I avow myself to be as yet incapable of determining the question, but rather with cautious persons, because I do not recklessly teach what I know nothing about. But I am not disposed on my own part to return railing for railing and compare this man with brutes. Rather, I warn him as a son to acknowledge that he is really ignorant of that which he knows nothing about. I warn him not to attempt to teach that which he has not yet learned, lest he should deserve to be compared with those persons whom the apostle mentions as "desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions."