469

I feel that I might not have been; for the Ego consists in my thoughts.  Therefore I, who think, would not have been, if my mother had been killed before I had life.  I am not then a necessary being.  In the same way I am not eternal or infinite; but I see plainly that there exists in nature a necessary Being, eternal and infinite.

470

“Had I seen a miracle,” say men, “I should become converted.”  How can they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are ignorant?  They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God which is like commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to themselves.  True religion consists in annihilating self before that Universal Being, whom we have so often provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time; in recognising that we can do nothing without Him, and have deserved nothing from Him but His displeasure.  It consists in knowing that there is an unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator there can be no communion with Him.

471

It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they do it with pleasure and voluntarily.  I should deceive those in whom I had created this desire; for I am not the end of any, and I have not the wherewithal to satisfy them.  Am I not about to die?  And thus the object of their attachment will die.  Therefore, as I would be blamable in causing a falsehood to be believed, though I should employ gentle persuasion, though it should be believed with pleasure, and though it should give me pleasure; even so I am blamable in making myself loved, and if I attract persons to attach themselves to me.  I ought to warn those who are ready to consent to a lie, that they ought not to believe it, whatever advantage comes to me from it; and likewise that they ought not to attach themselves to me; for they ought to spend their life and their care in pleasing God, or in seeking Him.

472

Self-will will never be satisfied, though it should have command of all it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it.  Without it we cannot be discontented; with it we cannot be content.

473

Let us imagine a body full of thinking members.[178]

474

Members, To commence with that.—­To regulate the love which we owe to ourselves, we must imagine a body full of thinking members, for we are members of the whole, and must see how each member should love itself, etc....

475

If the feet and the hands had a will of their own, they could only be in their order in submitting this particular will to the primary will which governs the whole body.  Apart from that, they are in disorder and mischief; but in willing only the good of the body, they accomplish their own good.

476

We must love God only and hate self only.