But I have already sufficiently considered how,
notwithstanding the supreme goodness of God, falsity enters
into the judgments I make. Only here a new difficulty is
presented?one respecting those things the pursuit or avoidance
of which is taught me by nature, and also respecting the
internal sensations which I possess, and in which I seem to
have sometimes detected error [and thus to be directly
deceived by my own nature]. To take an example, the agreeable
taste of some food in which poison has been intermingled may
induce me to partake of the poison, and thus deceive me. It
is true, at the same time, that in this case nature may be
excused, for it only induces me to desire food in which I find
a pleasant taste, and not to desire the poison which is
unknown to it; and thus I can infer nothing from this fact,
except that my nature is not omniscient, at which there is
certainly no reason to be astonished, since man, being finite
in nature, can only have knowledge the perfectness of which is
limited.
But we not unfrequently deceive ourselves even in those
things to which we are directly impelled by nature, as happens
with those who when they are sick desire to drink or eat
things hurtful to them.
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