If the foot had always been ignorant that it belonged to the body, and that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only had the knowledge and the love of self, and if it came to know that it belonged to a body on which it depended, what regret, what shame for its past life, for having been useless to the body which inspired its life, which would have annihilated it if it had rejected it and separated it from itself, as it kept itself apart from the body!  What prayers for its preservation in it!  And with what submission would it allow itself to be governed by the will which rules the body, even to consenting, if necessary, to be cut off, or it would lose its character as member!  For every member must be quite willing to perish for the body, for which alone the whole is.

477

It is false that we are worthy of the love of others; it is unfair that we should desire it.  If we were born reasonable and impartial, knowing ourselves and others, we should not give this bias to our will.  However, we are born with it; therefore born unjust, for all tends to self.  This is contrary to all order.  We must consider the general good; and the propensity to self is the beginning of all disorder, in war, in politics, in economy, and in the particular body of man.  The will is therefore depraved.

If the members of natural and civil communities tend towards the weal of the body, the communities themselves ought to look to another more general body of which they are members.  We ought therefore to look to the whole.  We are therefore born unjust and depraved.

478

When we want to think of God, is there nothing which turns us away, and tempts us to think of something else?  All this is bad, and is born in us.

479

If there is a God, we must love Him only, and not the creatures of a day.  The reasoning of the ungodly in the book of Wisdom[179] is only based upon the non-existence of God.  “On that supposition,” say they, “let us take delight in the creatures.”  That is the worst that can happen.  But if there were a God to love, they would not have come to this conclusion, but to quite the contrary.  And this is the conclusion of the wise:  “There is a God, let us therefore not take delight in the creatures.”

Therefore all that incites us to attach ourselves to the creatures is bad; since it prevents us from serving God if we know Him, or from seeking Him if we know Him not.  Now we are full of lust.  Therefore we are full of evil; therefore we ought to hate ourselves and all that excited us to attach ourselves to any other object than God only.

480

To make the members happy, they must have one will, and submit it to the body.

481

The examples of the noble deaths of the Lacedaemonians and others scarce touch us.  For what good is it to us?  But the example of the death of the martyrs touches us; for they are “our members.”  We have a common tie with them.  Their resolution can form ours, not only by example, but because it has perhaps deserved ours.  There is nothing of this in the examples of the heathen.  We have no tie with them; as we do not become rich by seeing a stranger who is so, but in fact by seeing a father or a husband who is so.