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the vexation which
comes to us from it. But if I hate it because it is unjust and because it
makes itself the centre of everything, I shall always hate it.
In a word, the Self has two qualities: it is unjust in itself since it makes
itself the centre of everything; it is inconvenient to others since it would
enslave them; for each Self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of
all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so
you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice; you render it
lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy. And
thus you remain unjust and can please only the unjust.
456. It is a perverted judgement that makes every one place himself above
the rest of the world, and prefer his own good, and the continuance of his
own good fortune and life, to that of the rest of the world!
457. Each one is all in all to himself; for he being dead, all is dead to
him. Hence it comes that each believes himself to be all in all to
everybody. We must not judge of nature by ourselves, but by it.
458. "All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the
eyes, or the pride of life; libido sentiendi, libido sciendi, libido
dominandi."[73] Wretched is the cursed land which these three rivers of fire
enflame rather than water! Happy they who, on these rivers, are not
overwhelmed nor carried away, but are immovably fixed, not standing but
seated on a low and secure base, whence they do not rise before the light,
but, having rested in peace, stretch out their hands to Him, who must lift
them up, and make them stand upright and firm in the porches of the holy
Jerusalem! There pride can no longer assail them nor cast them down; and yet
they weep, not to see all those perishable things swept away by the
torrents, but at the remembrance of their loved country, the heavenly
Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing during their prolonged exile.
459. The river
Eva
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Linear Mode
