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BUT we affirm that some faults grow up without any natural occasion
giving birth to them, but simply from the free choice of a corrupt and evil
will, as envy and this very sin of covetousness; which are caught (so to
speak) from without, having no origination in us from natural instincts.
But these, in proportion as they are easily guarded against and readily
avoided, just so do they make wretched the mind that they have got hold of
and seized, and hardly do they suffer it to get at the remedies which would
cure it: either because these who are wounded by persons whom they might
either have ignored, or avoided, or easily overcome, do not deserve to be
healed by a speedy cure, or else because, having laid the foundations
badly, they are unworthy to raise an edifice of virtue and reach the summit
of perfection.
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