Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: ~~~~~+++ (!) Free Pussy!

Nec me pudet, ut istos, fateri nescire quid nesciam.61
Melius non incipient.62
365. Thought.--All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is,
therefore, by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have
strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more
ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects!
But what is this thought? How foolish it is!
366. The mind of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent
that it is not liable to be disturbed by the first din about it. The noise
of a cannon is not necessary to hinder its thoughts; it needs only the
creaking of a weathercock or pulley. Do not wonder if at present it does not
reason well; a fly is buzzing in its ears; that is enough to render it
incapable of good judgement. If you wish it to be able to reach the truth,
chase away that animal which holds its reason in check and disturbs that
powerful intellect which rules towns and kingdoms. Here is a comical god! O
ridicolosissimo eroe!
367. The power of flies; they win battles, hinder our soul from acting, eat
our body.
368. When it is said that heat is only the motions of certain molecules, and
light the conatus recedendi which we feel, it astonishes us. What! Is
pleasure only the ballet of our spirits? We have conceived so different an
idea of it! And these sensations seem so removed from those others which we
say are the same as those with which we compare them! The sensation from the
fire, that warmth which affects us in a manner wholly different from touch,
the reception of sound and light, all this appears to us mysterious, and yet
it is material like the blow of a stone. It is true that the smallness of
the spirits which enter into the pores touches other nerves, but there are
always some nerves touched.
369. Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason.
370. Chance gives rise to thoughts,

by the Deluge, circumcision, the cross of
Saint Andrew, etc.
818. Having considered how it comes that there are so many false miracles,
false revelations, sorceries, etc., it has seemed to me that the true cause
is that there are some true; for it would not be possible that there should
be so many false miracles, if there were none true, nor so many false
revelations, if there were none true, nor so many false religions, if there
were not one true. For if there had never been all this, it is almost
impossible that men should have imagined it, and still more impossible that
so many others should have believed it. But as there have been very great
things true, and as they have been believed by great men, this impression
has been the cause that nearly everybody is rendered capable of believing
also the false. And thus, instead of concluding that there are no true
miracles, since there are so many false, it must be said, on the contrary,
that there are true miracles, since there are so many false; and that there
are false ones only because there are true; and that in the same way there
are false religions because there is one true.--Objection to this: savages
have a religion. But this is because they have heard the true spoken of, as
appears by the cross of Saint Andrew, the Deluge, circumcision, etc. This
arises from the fact that the human mind, finding itself inclined to that
side by the truth, becomes thereby susceptible of all the falsehoods of
this...
819. Jeremiah 23:32. The miracles of the false prophets. In the Hebrew and
Vatable they are the tricks.
Miracle does not always signify miracle. I Sam. 14:15; miracle signifies
fear, and is so in the Hebrew. The same evidently in Job 33:7; and also
Isaiah 21:4; Jeremiah 44:12. Portentum signifies simulac