Commentary Par XXXII 49-60

Part I: Bernard has divined that Dante, observing that these infants seem to be ranked in some sort of preferential order, immediately counters that (true) perception with the perfectly sensible notion that they only seem to be ordered by their varying merit, but are in fact merely casually arranged (for how can one distinguish one infant's moral perfection from another's?).  In response, he treats his pupil as though he were a balky schoolboy (the reader may understandably feel surprise; we are, after all, very near the final vision).