words.
SECTION II: THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD
60. First part: Misery of man without God.
Second part: Happiness of man with God.
Or, First part: That nature is corrupt. Proved by nature itself.
Second part: That there is a Redeemer. Proved by Scripture.
61. Order.--I might well have taken this discourse in an order like this: to
show the vanity of all conditions of men, to show the vanity of ordinary
lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the
order would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few
people understand it. No human science can keep it. Saint Thomas did not
keep it. Mathematics keep it, but they are useless on account of their
depth.
62. Preface to the first part.--To speak of those who have treated of the
knowledge of self; of the divisions of Charron, which sadden and weary us;
of the confusion of Montaigne; that he was quite aware of his want of method
and shunned it by jumping from subject to subject; that he sought to be
fashionable.
His foolish project of describing himself! And this not casually and against
his maxims, since every one makes mistakes, but by his maxims themselves,
and by first and chief design. For to say silly things by chance and
weakness is a co