things good or desirable,
since I saw certain men in the abundance of them especially desire
those wherein they abounded; because at no time is the thirst of
cupidity quenched; not only are they tormented by the desire for the
increase of those things which they possess, but also they have
torment in the fear of losing them." And all these are the words of
Tullius, and even thus they stand in that book which has been
mentioned.

And, as a stronger witness to this imperfection, hear Boethius,
speaking in his book of Consolation: "If the Goddess of Riches were to
expand and multiply riches till they were as numerous as the sands
thrown up by the sea when tost by the tempest, or countless as the
stars that shine, still Man would weep."

And because still further testimony is needful to reduce this to a
proof, note how much Solomon and his father David exclaim against
them, how much against them is Seneca, especially when writing to
Lucilius, how much Horace, how much Juvenal, and, briefly, how much
every writer, every poet, and how much Divine Scripture. All Truthful
cries aloud against these false enticers to sin, full of all defect.
Call to mind also, in aid of faith, what your own eyes have seen, what
is the life of those men who follow after riches, how far they live
securely when they have piled them up, what their contentment is, how
peacefully they rest.

What else daily endangers and destroys cities, countries, individual
persons, so much as the fresh heaping up of wealth in the possession
of some man? His accumulation wakens new desires, to the fulfilment of
which it is not possible to attain without injury to some one.

And what else does the Law, both Canonical and Civil, intend to
rectify except cupidity or avarice, which grows with its heaps of
riches, and which the Law seeks to resist or prevent. Truly, the
Canonical and the Civil Law make it sufficiently clear, if the first
sections of their written word are read. How evident it is, nay, I say
it is most evident, that these riches are, in their increase, entirely
imperfect; when, being amassed, naught else but imperfection can
possibly spring forth from them. And this is what the text says.

But here arises a doubtful question, which is not to be passed over
without being put and answered. Some calumniator of the Truth might be
able to say that if, by increasing desire in their acquisition, riches
are imperfect and therefore vile, for this reason scie