I Don't Know What A Scoundrel Is

Man Is So Muddled, So Dependent On The Things Immediately Before His Eyes, That Every Day Even The Most Submissive Believer Can Be Seen To Risk The Torments Of The Afterlife For The Smallest Pleasure.

Every Time That A Man Who Is Not An Absolute Fool Presents You With A Question He Considers Very Problematic After Giving It Careful Thought, Distrust Those Quick Answers That Come To The Mind Of Someone Who Has Considered It Only Briefly Or Not At All. These Answers Are Usually Simplistic Views Lacking In Consistency, Which Explain Nothing, Or Which Do Not Bear Examination.

Without Doubt, God Is The Universal Moving Force, But Each Being Is Moved According To The Nature That God Has Given It. God Directs Angels, Men, Animals, Brute Matter, In Sum All Created Things, But Each According To Its Nature: And Man Having Been Created Free, He Is Led Freely.

It Can Even Come About That A Created Will Cancels Out, Not Perhaps The Exertion, But The Result Of Divine Action; For In This Sense, God Himself Has Told Us That God Wishes Things Which Do Not Happen Because Man Does Not Wish Them! Thus The Rights Of Men Are Immense, And His Greatest Misfortune Is To Be Unaware Of Them.

It Is One Of Man's Curious Idiosyncrasies To Create Difficulties For The Pleasure Of Resolving Them.