Re: Cover up attempt

it justly, for they have only that of
human caprice; nor have they strength to hold it securely. It is the same
with knowledge, for disease takes it away. We are incapable both of truth
and goodness.

437. We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty.

We seek happiness, and find only misery and death.

We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or
happiness. This desire is left to us, partly to punish us, partly to make us
perceive wherefrom we are fallen.

438. If man is not made for God, why is he only happy in God? If man is made
for God, why is he so opposed to God?

439. Nature corrupted.--Man does not act by reason, which constitutes his
being.

440. The corruption of reason is shown by the existence of so many different
and extravagant customs. It was necessary that truth should come, in order
that man should no longer dwell within himself.

441. For myself, I confess that, so soon as the Christian religion reveals
the principle that human nature is corrupt and fallen from God, that opens
my eyes to see everywhere the mark of this truth: for nature is such that
she testifies everywhere, both within man and without him, to a lost God and
a corrupt nature.

442. Man's true nature, his true good, true virtue, and true religion, are
things of which the knowledge is inseparable.

443. Greatness, wretchedness.--The more light we have, the more greatness
and the more baseness we discover in man. Ordinary men--those who are more
educated: philosophers, they astonish ordinary men--Christians, they
astonish philosophers.

Who will then be surprised to see that religion only makes us know
profoundly what we already know in proportion to our light?

444. This religion taught to her children what men have only been able to
discover by their greatest knowledge.

445. Original sin is foolishness to men, b