vil communities tend towards the weal of
the body, the communities themselves ought to look to another more
general body of which they are members. We ought therefore to look to
the whole. We are therefore born unjust and depraved.

478

When we want to think of God, is there nothing which turns us away, and
tempts us to think of something else? All this is bad, and is born in
us.

479

If there is a God, we must love Him only, and not the creatures of a
day. The reasoning of the ungodly in the book of Wisdom[179] is only
based upon the non-existence 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,