24.  But (the author will say) this wonderful power which causes us to be indifferent to everything, or inclined towards everything, simply at our own free will, prevails over reason itself.  And this is his third proof, namely, that one cannot sufficiently explain our actions without having recourse to this power.  One sees numbers of people despising the entreaties of their friends, the counsels of their neighbours, the reproaches of their conscience, discomforts, tortures, death, the wrath of God, hell itself, for the sake of running after follies which have no claim to be good or tolerable, save as being freely chosen by such people.  All is well in this argument, with the exception of the last words only.  For when one takes an actual instance one will find that there were reasons or causes which led the man to his choice, and that there are very strong bonds to fasten [434] him thereto.  A love-affair, for example, will never have arisen from mere indifference:  inclination or passion will have played its part; but habit and stubbornness will cause certain natures to face ruin rather than separation from the beloved.  Here is another example cited by the author:  an atheist, a man like Lucilio Vanini (that is what many people call him, whereas he himself adopts the magnificent name of Giulio Cesare Vanini in his works), will suffer a preposterous martyrdom for his chimera rather than renounce his impiety.  The author does not name Vanini; and the truth is that this man repudiated his wrong opinions, until he was convicted of having published atheistical dogmas and acted as an apostle of atheism.  When he was asked whether there was a God, he plucked some grass, saying: 

  Et levis est cespes qui probet esse Deum.

But since the Attorney General to the Parliament of Toulouse desired to cause annoyance to the First President (so it is said), to whom Vanini was granted considerable access, teaching his children philosophy, if indeed he was not altogether in the service of that magistrate, the inquisition was carried through rigorously.  Vanini, seeing that there was no chance of pardon, declared himself, when at the point of death, for what he was, an atheist; and there was nothing very extraordinary in that.  But supposing there were an atheist who gave himself up for torture, vanity might be in his case a strong enough motive, as in that of the Gymnosophist, Calanus, and of the Sophist who, according to Lucian’s account, was burnt to death of his own will.  But the author thinks that that very vanity, that stubbornness, those other wild intentions of persons who otherwise seem to have quite good sense, cannot be explained by the appetites that arise from the representation of good and evil, and that they compel us to have recourse to that transcendent power which transforms good into evil, and evil into good, and the indifferent into good or into evil.  But we do not need to go so far, and the causes of our errors are only too visible.  Indeed, we can make