that man is the most excellent
creature. Some, which have quite recognised the reality of his excellence,
have considered as mean and ungrateful the low opinions which men naturally
have of themselves; and others, which have thoroughly recognised how real is
this vileness, have treated with proud ridicule those feelings of greatness,
which are equally natural to man.

"Lift your eyes to God," say the first; "see Him whom you resemble and who
has created you to worship Him. You can make yourselves like unto Him;
wisdom will make you equal to Him, if you will follow it." "Raise your
heads, free men," says Epictetus. And others say, "Bend your eyes to the
earth, wretched worm that you are, and consider the brutes whose companion
you are."

What, then, will man become? Will he be equal to God or the brutes? What a
frightful difference! What, then, shall we be? Who does not see from all
this that man has gone astray, that he has fallen from his place, that he
anxiously seeks it, that he cannot find it again? And who shall then direct
him to it? The greatest men have failed.

432. Scepticism is true; for, after all, men before Jesus Christ did not
know where they were, nor whether they were great or small. And those who
have said the one or the other knew nothing about it and guessed without
reason and by chance. They also erred always in excluding the one or the
other.

Quod ergo ignorantes, quaeritis, religio annuntiat vobis.64

433. After having understood the whole nature of man.--That a religion may
be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. It ought to know its
greatness and littleness, and the reason of both. What religion but the
Christian has known this?

434. The chief arguments of the sceptics--I pass over the lesser ones--are
th