The materialism of his dogmatic contemporaries placed them at a terrible disadvantage when the sceptical successor of Plato went on to show that eternal duration is incompatible with whatever we know about the constitution of corporeal substance; and this part of his argument applied as much to the Epicurean as to the Stoic religion.246 But even a spiritualistic monotheism is not safe from his dissolving criticism. According to Carneades, a god without senses has no experience of whatever pleasurable or painful feelings accompany sensation, and is therefore, to that extent, more ignorant than a man; while to suppose that he experiences painful sensations is the same as making him obnoxious to the diminished vitality and eventual death with which they are naturally associated. And, generally speaking, all sensation involves a modification of the sentient subject by an external object, a condition necessarily implying the destructibility of the former by the latter.247 So also, moral goodness is an essentially relative quality, inconceivable without the possibility of succumbing to temptation, which we cannot attribute to a perfect Being.248 In a word, whatever belongs to conscious life being relative and conditioned, personality is excluded from the absolute by its very definition.
ONE:I had to walk along the very edge of the unstable bridge in order to avoid the wheels of the passing carriages, which shook the whole bridge and made the rather loose boards clatter. In the meantime, at no considerable distance, some shells fell in the Meuse, fired at the bridge from Fort Pontisse. Yet, I did not mind it at all, as all these new experiences stunned me, so to speak; the incessant hellish noises of the batteries, the burning houses, the smoke swooping down, the excited soldiers....
Lawrence desired nothing better. In a few minutes the stones lay on the table. The novelist picked them up, and took from his pocket a small file which he coolly rubbed on the facet of two of the larger stones. Maitrank smiled. Any diamond would stand that test. With a grave look, Lawrence handed the stones back--the tested diamonds were dull and flat."A Netherland journalist, who is trying to get news for his paper.""You are distant tonight," she said. "Go and talk to Hetty. Not that I am going to let her monopolise you all the evening. I am too jealous of your reputation for that. Now go and make the most of your time."Hello, boys!
路见不平Eason吼
