to consent to a lie, that they ought not to believe
it, whatever advantage comes to me from it; and likewise that they ought
not to attach themselves to me; for they ought to spend their life and
their care in pleasing God, or in seeking Him.

472

Self-will will never be satisfied, though it should have command of all
it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without
it we cannot be discontented; with it we cannot be content.

473

Let us imagine a body full of thinking members.[178]

474

_Members, To commence with that._--To regulate the love which we owe to
ourselves, we must imagine a body full of thinking members, for we are
members of the whole, and must see how each member should love itself,
etc....

475

If the feet and the hands had a will of their own, they could only be in
their order in submitting this particular will to the primary will which
governs the whole body. Apart from that, they are in disorder and
mischief; but in willing only the good of the body, they accomplish
their own good.

476

We must love God only and hate self only.

If the foot had always been ignorant that it belonged to the body, and
that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only had the
knowledge and the love of self, and if it came to know that it belonged
to a body on which it depended, what regret, what shame for its past
life, for having been useless to the body which inspired its life, which
would have annihilated it if it had rejected it and separated it from
itself, as it kept itself apart from the body! What prayers for its
preservation in it! And with what submission would it allow itself to be
governed by the will which rules the body, even to consenting, if
necessary, to be cut off, or it would lose its character as member! For
every member must be quite willing to perish for the body, for which
alone the whole is.

477

It is false that we are worthy of the love of others; it is unfair that
we should desire it. If we were born reasonable and impartial, knowing
ourselves and others, we should not give this bias to our will. However,
we are born with it; therefore born unjust, for all tends to self. This
is contrary to all order. We must consider the general good; and the
propensity to self is the beginning of all disorder, in war, in
politics, in economy, and in the particular body of man. The will is
therefore depraved.

If the members of natural and ci