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of Wisdom is only based upon
the nonexistence of God. "On that supposition," say they, "let us take
delight in the creatures." That is the worst that can happen. But if there
were a God to love, they would not have come to this conclusion, but to
quite the contrary. And this is the conclusion of the wise: "There is a God;
let us therefore not take delight in the creatures."

Therefore all that incites us to attach ourselves to the creatures is bad;
since it prevents us from serving God if we know Him, or from seeking Him if
we know Him not. Now we are full of lust. Therefore we are full of evil;
therefore we ought to hate ourselves and all that excited us to attach
ourselves to any other object than God only.

480. To make the members happy, they must have one will and submit it to the
body.

481. The examples of the noble deaths of the Lacedaemonians and others
scarce touch us. For what good is it to us? But the example of the death of
the martyrs touches us; for they are "our members." We have a common tie
with them. Their resolution can form ours, not only by example, but because
it has perhaps deserved ours. There is nothing of this in the examples of
the heathen. We have no tie with them; as we do not become rich by seeing a
stranger who is so, but in fact by seeing a father or a husband who is so.

482. Morality.--God having made the heavens and the earth, which do not feel
the happiness of their being, He has willed to make beings who should know
it, and who should compose a body of thinking members. For our members do
not feel the happiness of their union, of their wonderful intelligence, of
the care which has been taken to infuse into them minds, and to make them
grow and endure. How happy they would be if they saw and felt it! But for
this they would need to have intelligence to know it, and good-will to
consent to that of the universal soul. But if, having received intelligence,
they employed it to retain nourishme