by flattering our vanity, let us hasten to cast our eyes on our
weakness.


SECT. LIII. Weakness of Man's Mind.


That same mind that incessantly sees the infinite, and, through the
rule of the infinite, all finite things, is likewise infinitely
ignorant of all the objects that surround it. It is altogether
ignorant of itself, and gropes about in an abyss of darkness. It
neither knows what it is, nor how it is united with a body; nor
which way it has so much command over all the springs of that body,
which it knows not. It is ignorant of its own thoughts and wills.
It knows not, with certainty, either what it believes or wills. It
often fancies to believe and will, what it neither believes nor
wills. It is liable to mistake, and its greatest excellence is to
acknowledge it. To the error of its thoughts, it adds the disorder
and irregularity of its will and desires; so that it is forced to
groan in the consciousness and experience of its corruption. Such
is the mind of man, weak, uncertain, stinted, full of errors. Now,
who is it that put the idea of the infinite, that is to say of
perfection, in a subject so stinted and so full of imperfection?
Did it give itself so sublime, and so pure an idea, which is itself
a kind of infinite in imagery? What finite being distinct from it
was able to give it what bears no proportion with what is limited
within any bounds? Let us suppose the mind of man to be like a
looking-glass, wherein the images of all the neighbouring bodies
imprint themselves. Now what being was able to stamp within us the
image of the infinite, if the infinite never existed? Who can put