akes up; the one mistakes, the other rectifies; the one goes awry,
through his inclination, the other sets him right. It was the
mistaken and ill-understood experience of this that led the
Marcionites and Manicheans into error. Every man is conscious
within himself of a limited and inferior reason, that goes astray
and errs, as soon as it gets loose from an entire subordination, and
which mends its error no other way, but by returning under the yoke
of another superior, universal, and immutable reason. Thus
everything within us argues an inferior, limited, communicated, and
borrowed reason, that wants every moment to be rectified by another.
All men are rational by means of the same reason, that communicates
itself to them, according to various degrees. There is a certain
number of wise men; but the wisdom from which they draw theirs, as
from an inexhaustible source, and which makes them what they are, is
but ONE.

SECT. LVIII. It is the Primitive Truth, that Lights all Minds, by
communicating itself to them.

Where is that wisdom? Where is that reason, at once both common and
superior to all limited and imperfect reasons of mankind? Where is
that oracle, which is never silent, and against which all the vain
prejudices of men cannot prevail? Where is that reason which we
have ever occasion to consult, and which prevents us to create in us
the desire of hearing its voice? Where is that lively light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world? Where is that pure
and soft light, which not only lights those eyes that are open, but
which opens eyes that are shut; cures sore eyes; gives eyes to those
that have none to see it; in short, which raises the desire of being
lighted by it, and gains even their love, who were afraid to see it?
Every eye sees it; nor would it see anything, unless it saw it;
since it is by that light and its pure rays that the eye sees
everything. As the sensibler sun in the firmament lights all
bodies, so the sun of intelligence lights all minds. The substance
of a man's eye is not the light: on the contrary, the eye borrows,
every moment, the light from the rays of the sun. Just in the same
manner, my mind is not the primitive reason, or universal and
immutable truth; but only the organ through which that original
light passes, and which is lighted by it. There is a sun of spirits
that lights them far better than the visible sun lights bodies.
This sun of spirits gives