27. But now hear, what I
trust I shall by this time more easily persuade you of. In a matter
of religion, that is, of the worship and knowledge of God, they are
less to be followed, who forbid us to believe, making most ready
professions of reason. For no one doubts that all men are either
fools or wise.1744
| 1744 cf. Retract. b. i. ch. 14.
4. “Also what I said, ‘No one doubts that all men are either
fools or wise,’ may seem contrary to what is read in my third
book On Free Will, (c. 24.) ‘as though human nature
admitted of no middle state between folly and wisdom.’ But that
is said when the question was about the first man, whether he was
made wise, or foolish, or neither: since we could in no wise call
him foolish, who was made without fault, since folly is a great
fault, and how we could call him wise, who was capable of being led
astray, did not appear. So for shortness I thought well to say,
‘as though human nature admitted of no middle state between folly
and wisdom.’ I also had infants in view, whom though we confess
to bear with them original sin, yet we cannot properly call either
wise or foolish, not as yet using free will either well or ill. But
now I said that men were either wise or foolish, meaning those to
be understood who are already using reason, by which they are
distinguished from cattle, so as to be men; as we say that ‘all
men wish to be happy.’ For can we in so true and manifest a
statement be in fear of being supposed to mean infants, who have
not yet the power of so wishing?” |
But now I
call
wise, not clever and gifted men, but those, in whom there is,
so much as may be in man, the
knowledge of man himself and of
God
most surely received, and a
life and manners suitable to that
knowledge; but all others, whatever be their skill or want of
skill, whatever their manner of
life, whether to be approved or
disapproved, I would account in the number of
fools. And, this
being so, who of moderate understanding but will clearly see, that
it is more useful and more healthful for
fools to obey the
precepts
of the
wise, than to
live by their own
judgment? For everything
that is done, if it be not rightly done, is a
sin, nor can that any
how be rightly done which proceeds not from right reason. Further,
right reason is very
virtue. But to whom of men is
virtue at
hand,
save to the
mind of the
wise? Therefore the
wise man alone
sins
not. Therefore every
fool sins,
save in those actions, in which he
hath obeyed a
wise man: for all such actions proceed from right
reason, and, so to say, the
fool is not to be accounted master of
his own action, he being, as it were, the
instrument and that which
ministers1745
to the
wise man. Wherefore, if it be better for all men not to
sin than to
sin; assuredly all
fools would
live better, if they could be
slaves
of the
wise. And, if no one doubts that this is better in lesser
matters, as in buying and selling, and cultivating the ground, in
taking a
wife, in undertaking and bringing
1746
| 1746 Or
“begetting,”—suscipiendis |
up
children, lastly, in the
management of household property, much more in
religion. For both
human matters are more easy to distinguish between, than
divine;
and in all matters of greater sacredness and excellence, the
greater obedience and service we owe them, the more
wicked and the
more
dangerous is it to
sin. Therefore you see henceforth
1747
| 1747 Ben. ed.—a modo. Mss.
admodum |
that
nothing else is left us, so long as we are
fools, if our
heart be
set on an excellent and
religious life, but to seek wise men, by
obeying whom we may be enabled both to lessen the great feeling of
the rule of folly, whilst it is in us, and at the last to escape
from it.
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