Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: todays update sample _ 45.jpg (1/1)  Thigh Highs

second custom. This depends on
disposition.
93. Parents fear lest the natural love of their children may fade away. What
kind of nature is that which is subject to decay? Custom is a second nature
which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I
am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a
second nature.
94. The nature of man is wholly natural, omne animal.[18]
There is nothing he may not make natural; there is nothing natural he may
not lose.
95. Memory, joy, are intuitions; and even mathematical propositions become
intuitions, for education produces natural intuitions, and natural
intuitions are erased by education.
96. When we are accustomed to use bad reasons for proving natural effects,
we are not willing to receive good reasons when they are discovered. An
example may be given from the circulation of the blood as a reason why the
vein swells below the ligature.
97. The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling; chance
decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters. "He is a good
slater," says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, "They are perfect
fools." But others affirm, "There is nothing great but war; the rest of men
are good for nothing." We choose our callings according as we hear this or
that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love truth and
hate folly. These words move us; the only error is in their application. So
great is the force of custom that, out of those whom nature has only made
men, are created all conditions of men. For some districts are full of
masons, others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature is not so uniform. It is
custom then which doe

God keeps me in a state of
semi-darkness, such partial darkness displeases me, and, because I do not
see therein the advantage of total darkness, it is unpleasant to me. This is
a fault and a sign that I make for myself an idol of darkness, apart from
the order of God. Now only His order must be worshipped.
583. The feeble-minded are people who know the truth, but only affirm it so
far as consistent with their own interest. But, apart from that, they
renounce it.
584. The world exists for the exercise of mercy and judgement, not as if men
were placed in it out of the hands of God, but as hostile to God; and to
them He grants by grace sufficient light, that they may return to Him, if
they desire to seek and follow Him; and also that they may be punished, if
they refuse to seek or follow Him.
585. That God has willed to hide Himself.--If there were only one religion,
God would indeed be manifest. The same would be the case if there were no
martyrs but in our religion.
God being thus hidden, every religion which does not affirm that God is
hidden is not true; and every religion which does not give the reason of it
is not instructive. Our religion does all this: Vere tu es Deus
absconditus.[102]
586. If there were no obscurity, man would not be sensible of his
corruption; if there were no light, man would not hope for a remedy. Thus,
it is not only fair, but advantageous to us, that God be partly hidden and
partly revealed; since it is equally dangerous to man to know God without
knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without
knowing God.
587. This religion, so great in miracles, saints, blameless Fathers, learned
and great witnesses, martyrs, established kings as David, and Isaiah, a
prince of the blood, and