Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: 8================D

the sea, and as
    each coolie ship arrives at the wharf, a small force of police
    is in waiting to keep a space clear and prevent any attempt at
    escape, while the officers of the Protectorate board the ship,
    accompanied by a further force of marine police, for the purpose
    of inspecting the coolies. When permission is given to disembark,
    the unpaid passengers are made up into small parties and marched
    through the town to the depots under the escort of the brokers and
    several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of
    rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a
    would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies
    are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown
    in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as
    'absconded either when landing or at depot' in Singapore, and 101
    at Penang, or about 1-3/4 per cent of the "unpaid passengers". On
    arrival at the depot, the coolies are probably surprised to find
    themselves securely confined in houses which look uncomfortably
    like prisons, and the passer-by may see the dirty and unkempt
    _sin-khehs_ or "new men," as these emigrants are called, peering
    out between the thick wooden bars of the windows. The coolies
    are thus forcibly detained at the depots until the brokers are
    successful in finding employers who are prepared to pay the price
    per head which they demand, a sum of about £10. In the meanwhile
    however, it a

they strength to hold it securely. It is the same
with knowledge, for disease takes it away. We are incapable both of truth
and goodness.
437. We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty.
We seek happiness, and find only misery and death.
We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or
happiness. This desire is left to us, partly to punish us, partly to make us
perceive wherefrom we are fallen.
438. If man is not made for God, why is he only happy in God? If man is made
for God, why is he so opposed to God?
439. Nature corrupted.--Man does not act by reason, which constitutes his
being.
440. The corruption of reason is shown by the existence of so many different
and extravagant customs. It was necessary that truth should come, in order
that man should no longer dwell within himself.
441. For myself, I confess that, so soon as the Christian religion reveals
the principle that human nature is corrupt and fallen from God, that opens
my eyes to see everywhere the mark of this truth: for nature is such that
she testifies everywhere, both within man and without him, to a lost God and
a corrupt nature.
442. Man's true nature, his true good, true virtue, and true religion, are
things of which the knowledge is inseparable.
443. Greatness, wretchedness.--The more light we have, the more greatness
and the more baseness we discover in man. Ordinary men--those who are more
educated: philosophers, they astonish ordinary men--Christians, they
astonish philosophers.
Who will then be surprised to see that religion only makes us know
profoundly what we already know in proportion to our light?
444. This religion taught to her children what men h

a person, but only qualities.
Let us, then, jeer no more at those who are honoured on account of rank and
office; for we love a person only on account of borrowed qualities.
324. The people have very sound opinions, for example:
1. In having preferred diversion and hunting to poetry. The half-learned
laugh at it, and glory in being above the folly of the world; but the people
are right for a reason which these do not fathom.
2. In having distinguished men by external marks, as birth or wealth. The
world again exults in showing how unreasonable this is; but it is very
reasonable. Savages laugh at an infant king.
3. In being offended at a blow, or in desiring glory so much. But it is very
desirable on account of the other essential goods which are joined to it;
and a man who has received a blow, without resenting it, is overwhelmed with
taunts and indignities.
4. In working for the uncertain; in sailing on the sea; in walking over a
plank.
325. Montaigne is wrong. Custom should be followed only because it is
custom, and not because it is reasonable or just. But people follow it for
this sole reason, that they think it just. Otherwise they would follow it no
longer, although it were the custom; for they will only submit to reason or
justice. Custom without this would pass for tyranny; but the sovereignty of
reason and justice is no more tyrannical than that of desire. They are
principles natural to man.
It would, therefore, be right to obey laws and customs, because they are
laws; but we should know that there is neither truth nor justice to
introduce into them, that we know nothing of these, and so must follow what
is accepted. By this means we would never depart from them. But people
cannot accept this doctrine; and, as they believe that truth can be found,
and that it exists in law and custom, they believe them and take their
antiquity as a proof of their truth, and not simply of their authority apart
from truth. Thus they