ry moment, and which causes some to find vengeance sweeter
than life itself.

_Quis vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa._

The author would wish to persuade us that usually, when our desire or our
aversion is for some object which does not sufficiently deserve it, we have
given to it the surplus of good or evil which has affected us, through the
alleged power of choice which makes things appear good or evil as we wish.
One has had two degrees of natural evil, one gives oneself six degrees of
artificial good through the power that can choose without cause. Thus one
will have four degrees of net good (ch. 5, sect. 2, Sec. 7). If that could be
carried out it would take us far, as I have already said here. The [437]
author even thinks that ambition, avarice, the gambling mania and other
frivolous passions derive all their force from this power (ch. 5, sect. 5,
sub-sect. 6). But there are besides so many false appearances in things, so
many imaginations capable of enlarging or diminishing objects, so many
unjustified connexions in our arguments, that there is no need of this
little Fairy, that is, of this inward power operating as it were by
enchantment, to whom the author attributes all these disorders. Indeed, I
have already said repeatedly that when we resolve upon some course contrary
to acknowledged reason, we are prompted to it by another reason stronger to
outward appearance, such as, for instance, is the pleasure of appearing
independent and of performing an extraordinary action. There was in days
past at the Court of Osnabrueck a tutor to the pages, who, like a second
Mucius Scaevola, held out his arm into the flame and looked like getting a
gangrene, in order to show that the strength of his mind was greater than a
very acute pain. Few people will follow his example; and I do not even know
if a writer could easily be found who, having once affirmed the existence
of a power capable of choosing without cause, or even contrary to reason,
would be willing to prove his case by his own example, in renouncing some
good benefice or some high office, simply in order to display this
superiority of will over reason. But I am sure at the least that an
intelligent man would not do so. He would be presently aware that someone
would nullify his sacrifice by pointing out to him that he had simply
imitated Heliodorus, Bishop of Larissa. That man (so it is said) held his
book on Theagenes and Chariclea dearer than his bishopric;