by it, while talking like the people.

337. The reason of effects. Degrees. The people honour persons of high
birth. The semi-learned despise them, saying that birth is not a personal,
but a chance superiority. The learned honour them, not for popular reasons,
but for secret reasons. Devout persons, who have more zeal than knowledge,
despise them, in spite of that consideration which makes them honoured by
the learned, because they judge them by a new light which piety gives them.
But perfect Christians honour them by another and higher light. So arise a
succession of opinions for and against, according to the light one has.

338. True Christians, nevertheless, comply with folly, not because they
respect folly, but the command of God, who for the punishment of men has
made them subject to these follies. Omnis creatura subjecta est vanitati.45
Liberabitur.46 Thus Saint Thomas explains the passage in Saint James on
giving place to the rich, that, if they do it not in the sight of God, they
depart from the command of religion.

                        SECTION VI: THE PHILOSOPHERS

339. I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head (for it is only
experience which teaches us that the head is more necessary than feet). But
I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

340. The arithmetical machine produces effects