l the judgment
and the senses; and if the more serious produce a sensible change, I do
not doubt that slighter ills produce a proportionate impression.

Our own interest is again a marvellous instrument for nicely putting out
our eyes. The justest man in the world is not allowed to be judge in his
own cause; I know some who, in order not to fall into this self-love,
have been perfectly unjust out of opposition. The sure way of losing a
just cause has been to get it recommended to these men by their near
relatives.

Justice and truth are two such subtle points, that our tools are too
blunt to touch them accurately. If they reach the point, they either
crush it, or lean all round, more on the false than on the true.

[Man is so happily formed that he has no ... good of the true, and
several excellent of the false. Let us now see how much.... But the most
powerful cause of error is the war existing between the senses and
reason.]

83

_We must thus begin the chapter on the deceptive powers._ Man is only a
subject full of error, natural and ineffaceable, without grace. Nothing
shows him the truth. Everything deceives him. These two sources of
truth, reason and the senses, besides being both wanting in sincerity,
deceive each other in turn. The senses mislead the reason with false
appearances, and receive from reason in their turn the same trickery
which they apply to her; reason has her revenge. The passions of the
soul trouble the senses, and make false impressions upon them. They
rival each other in falsehood and deception.[53]

But besides those errors which arise accidentally and through lack of
intelligence, with these heterogeneous faculties ...

84

The imagination enlarges little objects so as to fill our souls with a
fantastic estimate; and, with rash insolence, it belittles the great to
its own measure, as when talking of God.

85

Things which have most hold on us, as the concealment of our few
possessions, are often a mere nothing. It is a nothing which our
imagination magnifies into a mountain. Another turn of the imagination
would make us discover this without difficulty.

86

[My fancy makes me hate a croaker, and one who pants when eating. Fancy
has great weight. Shall we profit by it? Shall we yield to this weight
because it is natural? No, but by resisting it ...]

87

_Nae iste magno conatu magnas nugas dixerit.[54]

Quasi quidquam infelicius sit homini cui sua figmenta domi