(Augustine, Confessions. part 3)
vain -- show![28]
23. But why, then, did I dislike Greek learning, which was
full of such tales? For Homer was skillful in inventing such
poetic fictions and is most sweetly wanton; yet when I was a boy,
he was most disagreeable to me. I believe that Virgil would have
the same effect on Greek boys as Homer did on me if they were
forced to learn him. For the tedium of learning a foreign
language mingled gall into the sweetness of those Grecian myths.
For I did not understand a word of the language, and yet I was
driven with threats and cruel punishments to learn it. There was
also a time when, as an infant, I knew no Latin; but this I
acquired without any fear or tormenting, but merely by being alert
to the blandishments of my nurses, the jests of those who smiled
on me, and the sportiveness of those who toyed with me. I learned
all this, indeed, without being urged by any pressure of
punishment, for my own heart urged me to bring forth its own
fashioning, which I could not do except by learning words: not
from those who taught me but those who talked to me, into whose
ears I could pour forth whatever I could fashion. From this it is
sufficiently clear that a free curiosity is more effective in
learning than a discipline based on fear. Yet, by thy ordinance,
O God, discipline is given to restrain the excesses of freedom;
this ranges from the ferule of the schoolmaster to the trials of
the martyr and has the effect of mingling for us a wholesome
bitterness, which calls us back to thee from the poisonous
pleasures that first drew us from thee.
CHAPTER XV
24. Hear my prayer, O Lord; let not my soul faint under thy
discipline, nor let me faint in confessing unto thee thy mercies,
whereby thou hast saved me from all my most wicked ways till thou
shouldst become sweet to me beyond all the allurements that I used
to follow. Let me come to love thee wholly, and grasp thy hand
with my whole heart that thou mayest deliver me from every
temptation, even unto the last. And thus, O Lord, my King and my
God, may all things useful that I learned as a boy now be offered
in thy service -- let it be that for thy service I now speak and
write and reckon. For when I was learning vain things, thou didst
impose thy discipline upon me: and thou hast forgiven me my sin of
delighting in those vanities. In those studies I learned many a
useful word, but these might have been learned in matters not so
vain; and surely that is the safe way for youths to walk in.
CHAPTER XVI
25. But woe unto you, O torrent of human custom! Who shall
stay your course? When will you ever run dry? How long will you
carry down the sons of Eve into that vast and hideous ocean, which
even those who have the Tree (for an ark)[29] can scarcely pass
over? Do I not read in you the stories of Jove the thunderer --
and the adulterer?[30] How could he be both? But so it says, and
the sham thunder served as a cloak for him to play at real
adultery. Yet which of our gowned masters will give a tempered
hearing to a man trained in their own schools who cries out and
says: "These were Homer's fictions; he transfers things human to
the gods. I could have wished that he would transfer divine
things to us."[31] But it would have been more true if he said,
"These are, indeed, his fictions, but he attributed divine
attributes to sinful men, that crimes might not be accounted
crimes, and that whoever committed such crimes might appear to
imitate the celestial gods and not abandoned men."
26. And yet, O torrent of hell, the sons of men are still
cast into you, and they pay fees for learning all these things.
And much is made of it when this goes on in the forum under the
auspices of laws which give a salary over and above the fees. And
you beat against your rocky shore and roar: "Here words may be
learned; here you can attain the eloquence which is so necessary
to persuade people to your way of thinking; so helpful in
unfolding your opinions." Verily, they seem to argue that we
should never have understood these words, "golden shower,"
"bosom," "intrigue," "highest heavens," and other such words, if
Terence had not introduced a good-for-nothing youth upon the
stage, setting up a picture of Jove as his example of lewdness and
telling the tale
"Of Jove's descending in a golden shower
Into Danae's bosom...
With a woman to intrigue."
See how he excites himself to lust, as if by a heavenly
authority, when he says:
"Great Jove,
Who shakes the highest heavens with his thunder;
Shall I, poor mortal man, not do the same?
I've done it, and with all my heart, I'm glad."[32]
These words are not learned one whit more easily because of
this vileness, but through them the vileness is more boldly
perpetrated. I do not blame the words, for they are, as it were,
choice and precious vessels, but I do deplore the wine of error
which was poured out to us by teachers already drunk. And, unless
we also drank we were beaten, without liberty of appeal to a sober
judge. And yet, O my God, in whose presence I can now with
security recall this, I learned these things willingly and with
delight, and for it I was called a boy of good promise.
CHAPTER XVII
27. Bear with me, O my God, while I speak a little of those
talents, thy gifts, and of the follies on which I wasted them.
For a lesson was given me that sufficiently disturbed my soul, for
in it there was both hope of praise and fear of shame or stripes.
The assignment was that I should declaim the words of Juno, as she
raged and sorrowed that she could not
"Bar off Italy
From all the approaches of the Teucrian king."[33]
I had learned that Juno had never uttered these words. Yet
we were compelled to stray in the footsteps of these poetic
fictions, and to turn into prose what the poet had said in verse.
In the declamation, the boy won most applause who most strikingly
reproduced the passions of anger and sorrow according to the
"character" of the persons presented and who clothed it all in the
most suitable language. What is it now to me, O my true Life, my
God, that my declaiming was applauded above that of many of my
classmates and fellow students? Actually, was not all that smoke
and wind? Besides, was there nothing else on which I could have
exercised my wit and tongue? Thy praise, O Lord, thy praises
might have propped up the tendrils of my heart by thy Scriptures;
and it would not have been dragged away by these empty trifles, a
shameful prey to the spirits of the air. For there is more than
one way in which men sacrifice to the fallen angels.
CHAPTER XVIII
28. But it was no wonder that I was thus carried toward
vanity and was estranged from thee, O my God, when men were held
up as models to me who, when relating a deed of theirs -- not in
itself evil -- were covered with confusion if found guilty of a
barbarism or a solecism; but who could tell of their own
licentiousness and be applauded for it, so long as they did it in
a full and ornate oration of well-chosen words. Thou seest all
this, O Lord, and dost keep silence -- "long-suffering, and
plenteous in mercy and truth"[34] as thou art. Wilt thou keep
silence forever? Even now thou drawest from that vast deep the
soul that seeks thee and thirsts after thy delight, whose "heart
said unto thee, TI have sought thy face; thy face, Lord, will I
seek.'"[35] For I was far from thy face in the dark shadows of
passion. For it is not by our feet, nor by change of place, that
we either turn from thee or return to thee. That younger son did
not charter horses or chariots, or ships, or fly away on visible
wings, or journey by walking so that in the far country he might
prodigally waste all that thou didst give him when he set out.[36]
A kind Father when thou gavest; and kinder still when he returned
destitute! To be wanton, that is to say, to be darkened in heart
-- this is to be far from thy face.
29. Look down, O Lord God, and see patiently, as thou art
wont to do, how diligently the sons of men observe the
conventional rules of letters and syllables, taught them by those
who learned their letters beforehand, while they neglect the
eternal rules of everlasting salvation taught by thee. They carry
it so far that if he who practices or teaches the established
rules of pronunciation should speak (contrary to grammatical
usage) without aspirating the first syllable of "hominem"
["ominem," and thus make it "a 'uman being"], he will offend men
more than if he, a human being, were to _hate_ another human being
contrary to thy commandments. It is as if he should feel that
there is an enemy who could be more destructive to himself than
that hatred which excites him against his fellow man; or that he
could destroy him whom he hates more completely than he destroys
his own soul by this same hatred. Now, obviously, there is no
knowledge of letters more innate than the writing of conscience --
against doing unto another what one would not have done to
himself.
How mysterious thou art, who "dwellest on high"[37] in
silence. O thou, the only great God, who by an unwearied law
hurlest down the penalty of blindness to unlawful desire! When a
man seeking the reputation of eloquence stands before a human
judge, while a thronging multitude surrounds him, and inveighs
against his enemy with the most fierce hatred, he takes most
vigilant heed that his tongue does not slip in a grammatical
error, for example, and say inter hominibus [instead of inter
homines], but he takes no heed lest, in the fury of his spirit, he
cut off a man from his fellow men [ex hominibus].
30. These were the customs in the midst of which I was cast,
an unhappy boy. This was the wrestling arena in which I was more
fearful of perpetrating a barbarism than, having done so, of
envying those who had not. These things I declare and confess to
thee, my God. I was applauded by those whom I then thought it my
whole duty to please, for I did not perceive the gulf of infamy
wherein I was cast away from thy eyes.
For in thy eyes, what was more infamous than I was already,
since I displeased even my own kind and deceived, with endless
lies, my tutor, my masters and parents -- all from a love of play,
a craving for frivolous spectacles, a stage-struck restlessness to
imitate what I saw in these shows? I pilfered from my parents'
cellar and table, sometimes driven by gluttony, sometimes just to
have something to give to other boys in exchange for their
baubles, which they were prepared to sell even though they liked
them as well as I. Moreover, in this kind of play, I often sought
dishonest victories, being myself conquered by the vain desire for
pre-eminence. And what was I so unwilling to endure, and what was
it that I censured so violently when I caught anyone, except the
very things I did to others? And, when I was myself detected and
censured, I preferred to quarrel rather than to yield. Is this
the innocence of childhood? It is not, O Lord, it is not. I
entreat thy mercy, O my God, for these same sins as we grow older
are transferred from tutors and masters; they pass from nuts and
balls and sparrows, to magistrates and kings, to gold and lands
and slaves, just as the rod is succeeded by more severe
chastisements. It was, then, the fact of humility in childhood
that thou, O our King, didst approve as a symbol of humility when
thou saidst, "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."[38]
CHAPTER XIX
31. However, O Lord, to thee most excellent and most good,
thou Architect and Governor of the universe, thanks would be due
thee, O our God, even if thou hadst not willed that I should
survive my boyhood. For I existed even then; I lived and felt and
was solicitous about my own well-being -- a trace of that most
mysterious unity from whence I had my being.[39] I kept watch, by
my inner sense, over the integrity of my outer senses, and even in
these trifles and also in my thoughts about trifles, I learned to
take pleasure in truth. I was averse to being deceived; I had a
vigorous memory; I was gifted with the power of speech, was
softened by friendship, shunned sorrow, meanness, ignorance. Is
not such an animated creature as this wonderful and praiseworthy?
But all these are gifts of my God; I did not give them to myself.
Moreover, they are good, and they all together constitute myself.
Good, then, is he that made me, and he is my God; and before him
will I rejoice exceedingly for every good gift which, even as a
boy, I had. But herein lay my sin, that it was not in him, but in
his creatures -- myself and the rest -- that I sought for
pleasures, honors, and truths. And I fell thereby into sorrows,
troubles, and errors. Thanks be to thee, my joy, my pride, my
confidence, my God -- thanks be to thee for thy gifts; but do thou
preserve them in me. For thus wilt thou preserve me; and those
things which thou hast given me shall be developed and perfected,
and I myself shall be with thee, for from thee is my being.
BOOK TWO
He concentrates here on his sixteenth year, a year of idleness,
lust, and adolescent mischief. The memory of stealing some pears
prompts a deep probing of the motives and aims of sinful acts. "I
became to myself a wasteland."
CHAPTER I
1. I wish now to review in memory my past wickedness and the
carnal corruptions of my soul -- not because I still love them,
but that I may love thee, O my God. For love of thy love I do
this, recalling in the bitterness of self-examination my wicked
ways, that thou mayest grow sweet to me, thou sweetness without
deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured! Thus thou mayest
gather me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces,
while I turned away from thee, O Unity, and lost myself among "the
many."[40] For as I became a youth, I longed to be satisfied with
worldly things, and I dared to grow wild in a succession of
various and shadowy loves. My form wasted away, and I became
corrupt in thy eyes, yet I was still pleasing to my own eyes --
and eager to please the eyes of men.
CHAPTER II
2. But what was it that delighted me save to love and to be
loved? Still I did not keep the moderate way of the love of mind
to mind -- the bright path of friendship. Instead, the mists of
passion steamed up out of the puddly concupiscence of the flesh,
and the hot imagination of puberty, and they so obscured and
overcast my heart that I was unable to distinguish pure affection
from unholy desire. Both boiled confusedly within me, and dragged
my unstable youth down over the cliffs of unchaste desires and
plunged me into a gulf of infamy. Thy anger had come upon me, and
I knew it not. I had been deafened by the clanking of the chains
of my mortality, the punishment for my soul's pride, and I
wandered farther from thee, and thou didst permit me to do so. I
was tossed to and fro, and wasted, and poured out, and I boiled
over in my fornications -- and yet thou didst hold thy peace, O my
tardy Joy! Thou didst still hold thy peace, and I wandered still
farther from thee into more and yet more barren fields of sorrow,
in proud dejection and restless lassitude.
3. If only there had been someone to regulate my disorder
and turn to my profit the fleeting beauties of the things around
me, and to fix a bound to their sweetness, so that the tides of my
youth might have spent themselves upon the shore of marriage!
Then they might have been tranquilized and satisfied with having
children, as thy law prescribes, O Lord -- O thou who dost form
the offspring of our death and art able also with a tender hand to
blunt the thorns which were excluded from thy paradise![41] For
thy omnipotence is not far from us even when we are far from thee.
Now, on the other hand, I might have given more vigilant heed to
the voice from the clouds: "Nevertheless, such shall have trouble
in the flesh, but I spare you,"[42] and, "It is good for a man not
to touch a woman,"[43] and, "He that is unmarried cares for the
things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but he
that is married cares for the things that are of the world, how he
may please his wife."[44] I should have listened more attentively
to these words, and, thus having been "made a eunuch for the
Kingdom of Heaven's sake,"[45] I would have with greater happiness
expected thy embraces.
4. But, fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the
sea and, forsaking thee, followed the rushing of my own tide, and
burst out of all thy bounds. But I did not escape thy scourges.
For what mortal can do so? Thou wast always by me, mercifully
angry and flavoring all my unlawful pleasures with bitter
discontent, in order that I might seek pleasures free from
discontent. But where could I find such pleasure save in thee, O
Lord -- save in thee, who dost teach us by sorrow, who woundest us
to heal us, and dost kill us that we may not die apart from thee.
Where was I, and how far was I exiled from the delights of thy
house, in that sixteenth year of the age of my flesh, when the
madness of lust held full sway in me -- that madness which grants
indulgence to human shamelessness, even though it is forbidden by
thy laws -- and I gave myself entirely to it? Meanwhile, my
family took no care to save me from ruin by marriage, for their
sole care was that I should learn how to make a powerful speech
and become a persuasive orator.
CHAPTER III
5. Now, in that year my studies were interrupted. I had
come back from Madaura, a neighboring city[46] where I had gone to
study grammar and rhetoric; and the money for a further term at
Carthage was being got together for me. This project was more a
matter of my father's ambition than of his means, for he was only
a poor citizen of Tagaste.
To whom am I narrating all this? Not to thee, O my God, but
to my own kind in thy presence -- to that small part of the human
race who may chance to come upon these writings. And to what end?
That I and all who read them may understand what depths there are
from which we are to cry unto thee.[47] For what is more surely
heard in thy ear than a confessing heart and a faithful life?
Who did not extol and praise my father, because he went quite
beyond his means to supply his son with the necessary expenses for
a far journey in the interest of his education? For many far
richer citizens did not do so much for their children. Still,
this same father troubled himself not at all as to how I was
progressing toward thee nor how chaste I was, just so long as I
was skillful in speaking -- no matter how barren I was to thy
tillage, O God, who art the one true and good Lord of my heart,
which is thy field.[48]
6. During that sixteenth year of my age, I lived with my
parents, having a holiday from school for a time -- this idleness
imposed upon me by my parents' straitened finances. The
thornbushes of lust grew rank about my head, and there was no hand
to root them out. Indeed, when my father saw me one day at the
baths and perceived that I was becoming a man, and was showing the
signs of adolescence, he joyfully told my mother about it as if
already looking forward to grandchildren, rejoicing in that sort
of inebriation in which the world so often forgets thee, its
Creator, and falls in love with thy creature instead of thee --
the inebriation of that invisible wine of a perverted will which
turns and bows down to infamy. But in my mother's breast thou
hadst already begun to build thy temple and the foundation of thy
holy habitation -- whereas my father was only a catechumen, and
that but recently. She was, therefore, startled with a holy fear
and trembling: for though I had not yet been baptized, she feared
those crooked ways in which they walk who turn their backs to thee
and not their faces.
7. Woe is me! Do I dare affirm that thou didst hold thy
peace, O my God, while I wandered farther away from thee? Didst
thou really then hold thy peace? Then whose words were they but
thine which by my mother, thy faithful handmaid, thou didst pour
into my ears? None of them, however, sank into my heart to make
me do anything. She deplored and, as I remember, warned me
privately with great solicitude, "not to commit fornication; but
above all things never to defile another man's wife." These
appeared to me but womanish counsels, which I would have blushed
to obey. Yet they were from thee, and I knew it not. I thought
that thou wast silent and that it was only she who spoke. Yet it
was through her that thou didst not keep silence toward me; and in
rejecting her counsel I was rejecting thee -- I, her son, "the son
of thy handmaid, thy servant."[49] But I did not realize this,
and rushed on headlong with such blindness that, among my friends,
I was ashamed to be less shameless than they, when I heard them
boasting of their disgraceful exploits -- yes, and glorying all
the more the worse their baseness was. What is worse, I took
pleasure in such exploits, not for the pleasure's sake only but
mostly for praise. What is worthy of vituperation except vice
itself? Yet I made myself out worse than I was, in order that I
might not go lacking for praise. And when in anything I had not
sinned as the worst ones in the group, I would still say that I
had done what I had not done, in order not to appear contemptible
because I was more innocent than they; and not to drop in their
esteem because I was more chaste.
8. Behold with what companions I walked the streets of
Babylon! I rolled in its mire and lolled about on it, as if on a
bed of spices and precious ointments. And, drawing me more
closely to the very center of that city, my invisible enemy trod
me down and seduced me, for I was easy to seduce. My mother had
already fled out of the midst of Babylon[50] and was progressing,
albeit slowly, toward its outskirts. For in counseling me to
chastity, she did not bear in mind what her husband had told her
about me. And although she knew that my passions were destructive
even then and dangerous for the future, she did not think they
should be restrained by the bonds of conjugal affection -- if,
indeed, they could not be cut away to the quick. She took no heed
of this, for she was afraid lest a wife should prove a hindrance
and a burden to my hopes. These were not her hopes of the world
to come, which my mother had in thee, but the hope of learning,
which both my parents were too anxious that I should acquire -- my
father, because he had little or no thought of thee, and only vain
thoughts for me; my mother, because she thought that the usual
course of study would not only be no hindrance but actually a
furtherance toward my eventual return to thee. This much I
conjecture, recalling as well as I can the temperaments of my
parents. Meantime, the reins of discipline were slackened on me,
so that without the restraint of due severity, I might play at
whatsoever I fancied, even to the point of dissoluteness. And in
all this there was that mist which shut out from my sight the
brightness of thy truth, O my God; and my iniquity bulged out, as
it were, with fatness![51]
CHAPTER IV
9. Theft is punished by thy law, O Lord, and by the law
written in men's hearts, which not even ingrained wickedness can
erase. For what thief will tolerate another thief stealing from
him? Even a rich thief will not tolerate a poor thief who is
driven to theft by want. Yet I had a desire to commit robbery,
and did so, compelled to it by neither hunger nor poverty, but
through a contempt for well-doing and a strong impulse to
iniquity. For I pilfered something which I already had in
sufficient measure, and of much better quality. I did not desire
to enjoy what I stole, but only the theft and the sin itself.
There was a pear tree close to our own vineyard, heavily
laden with fruit, which was not tempting either for its color or
for its flavor. Late one night -- having prolonged our games in
the streets until then, as our bad habit was -- a group of young
scoundrels, and I among them, went to shake and rob this tree. We
carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to
dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves.
Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden. Such
was my heart, O God, such was my heart -- which thou didst pity
even in that bottomless pit. Behold, now let my heart confess to
thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously
wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was
foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error
-- not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved
soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself,
seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself.
CHAPTER V
10. Now there is a comeliness in all beautiful bodies, and
in gold and silver and all things. The sense of touch has its own
power to please and the other senses find their proper objects in
physical sensation. Worldly honor also has its own glory, and so
do the powers to command and to overcome: and from these there
springs up the desire for revenge. Yet, in seeking these
pleasures, we must not depart from thee, O Lord, nor deviate from
thy law. The life which we live here has its own peculiar
attractiveness because it has a certain measure of comeliness of
its own and a harmony with all these inferior values. The bond of
human friendship has a sweetness of its own, binding many souls
together as one. Yet because of these values, sin is committed,
because we have an inordinate preference for these goods of a
lower order and neglect the better and the higher good --
neglecting thee, O our Lord God, and thy truth and thy law. For
these inferior values have their delights, but not at all equal to
my God, who hath made them all. For in him do the righteous
delight and he is the sweetness of the upright in heart.
11. When, therefore, we inquire why a crime was committed,
we do not accept the explanation unless it appears that there was
the desire to obtain some of those values which we designate
inferior, or else a fear of losing them. For truly they are
beautiful and comely, though in comparison with the superior and
celestial goods they are abject and contemptible. A man has
murdered another man -- what was his motive? Either he desired
his wife or his property or else he would steal to support
himself; or else he was afraid of losing something to him; or
else, having been injured, he was burning to be revenged. Would a
man commit murder without a motive, taking delight simply in the
act of murder? Who would believe such a thing? Even for that
savage and brutal man [Catiline], of whom it was said that he was
gratuitously wicked and cruel, there is still a motive assigned to
his deeds. "Lest through idleness," he says, "hand or heart
should grow inactive."[52] And to what purpose? Why, even this:
that, having once got possession of the city through his practice
of his wicked ways, he might gain honors, empire, and wealth, and
thus be exempt from the fear of the laws and from financial
difficulties in supplying the needs of his family -- and from the
consciousness of his own wickedness. So it seems that even
Catiline himself loved not his own villainies, but something else,
and it was this that gave him the motive for his crimes.
CHAPTER VI
12. What was it in you, O theft of mine, that I, poor
wretch, doted on -- you deed of darkness -- in that sixteenth year
of my age? Beautiful you were not, for you were a theft. But are
you anything at all, so that I could analyze the case with you?
Those pears that we stole were fair to the sight because they were
thy creation, O Beauty beyond compare, O Creator of all, O thou
good God -- God the highest good and my true good.[53] Those
pears were truly pleasant to the sight, but it was not for them
that my miserable soul lusted, for I had an abundance of better
pears. I stole those simply that I might steal, for, having
stolen them, I threw them away. My sole gratification in them was
my own sin, which I was pleased to enjoy; for, if any one of these
pears entered my mouth, the only good flavor it had was my sin in
eating it. And now, O Lord my God, I ask what it was in that
theft of mine that caused me such delight; for behold it had no
beauty of its own -- certainly not the sort of beauty that exists
in justice and wisdom, nor such as is in the mind, memory senses,
and the animal life of man; nor yet the kind that is the glory and
beauty of the stars in their courses; nor the beauty of the earth,
or the sea -- teeming with spawning life, replacing in birth that
which dies and decays. Indeed, it did not have that false and
shadowy beauty which attends the deceptions of vice.
13. For thus we see pride wearing the mask of high-
spiritedness, although only thou, O God, art high above all.
Ambition seeks honor and glory, whereas only thou shouldst be
honored above all, and glorified forever. The powerful man seeks
to be feared, because of his cruelty; but who ought really to be
feared but God only? What can be forced away or withdrawn out of
his power -- when or where or whither or by whom? The enticements
of the wanton claim the name of love; and yet nothing is more
enticing than thy love, nor is anything loved more healthfully
than thy truth, bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity prompts
a desire for knowledge, whereas it is only thou who knowest all
things supremely. Indeed, ignorance and foolishness themselves go
masked under the names of simplicity and innocence; yet there is
no being that has true simplicity like thine, and none is innocent
as thou art. Thus it is that by a sinner's own deeds he is
himself harmed. Human sloth pretends to long for rest, but what
sure rest is there save in the Lord? Luxury would fain be called
plenty and abundance; but thou art the fullness and unfailing
abundance of unfading joy. Prodigality presents a show of
liberality; but thou art the most lavish giver of all good things.
Covetousness desires to possess much; but thou art already the
possessor of all things. Envy contends that its aim is for
excellence; but what is so excellent as thou? Anger seeks
revenge; but who avenges more justly than thou? Fear recoils at
the unfamiliar and the sudden changes which threaten things
beloved, and is wary for its own security; but what can happen
that is unfamiliar or sudden to thee? Or who can deprive thee of
what thou lovest? Where, really, is there unshaken security save
(continued in part 4 ...)
----------------------------------------------------
file: /pub/resources/text/icp-e/epl-01: agcon-03.txt
.