"It is not maintained," said Saffredent, "that they all were wise. They
had more of the appearance of sense and virtue than of the reality."

"Nevertheless, you will find that they rebuke everything bad," said
Geburon. "Diogenes himself, even, trod on the bed of Plato, who was too
fond (5) of rare and precious things for his taste, and this in order to
show that he despised Plato's vanity and greed, and would put them under
foot. 'I trample with contempt,' said he, 'upon the pride of Plato.'"

"But you have not told all," said Saffredent, "for Plato retorted that
he did so from pride of another kind."

"In truth," said Parlamente, "it is impossible to accomplish the
conquest of ourselves without extraordinary pride. And this is the
vice that we should fear most of all, for it springs from the death and
destruction of all the virtues."

"Did I not read to you this morning," said Oisille, "that those who
thought themselves wiser than other men, since by the sole light of
reason they had come to recognise a God, creator of all things, were
made more ignorant and irrational not only than other men, but than the
very brutes, and this because they did not ascribe the glory to Him to
whom it was due, but thought that they had gained the knowledge they
possessed by their own endeavours? For having erred in their minds
by ascribing to themselves that which pertains to God alone, they
manifested their errors by disorder of body, forgetting and perverting
their natural sex, as St. Paul to-day doth tell us in the Epistle that
he wrote to the Romans." (6)