For just as the bodily
senses may become perverted, and the taste lose its discrimination, so
that the hungry man will devour acrid fruits and poisonous herbs for
aliment, so is the mind capable of seeking out new paths, and a
knowledge which leads only to misery and destruction.
"Thus we know that in the past men sought after knowledge of various
kinds, asking not whether it was for good or for evil: but every offense
of the mind and the body has its appropriate reward; and while their
knowledge grew apace, that better knowledge and discrimination which the
Father gives to every living soul, both in man and in beast, was taken
from them. Thus by increasing their riches they were made poorer; and,
like one who, forgetting the limits that are set to his faculties, gazes
steadfastly on the sun, by seeing much they become afflicted with
blindness. But they know not their poverty and blindness, and were not
satisfied; but were like shipwrecked men on a lonely and barren rock in
the midst of the sea, who are consumed with thirst, and drink of no
sweet spring, but of the bitter wave, and thirst, and drink again, until
madness possesses their brains, and death releases them from their
misery.
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