January 15.

Natures. Intelligent, moral, sentient, brute or inert nature. Pure intelligence is spirit alone. Moral nature is spirit and flesh. Sentient nature partakes of flesh. Inert nature is only matter. — Their mixtures. The angel partakes of God; man, of the angel and the animal; the animal, of man and the plant; the plant, of the animal and the stone; the stone, of the plant and the pebble; the pebble is inert matter.

Pure taste and unvarying conformity to order are among the attributes of perfectly intelligent nature. The very sphere in which it dwells would not allow it to feel any other inclination. Variability, or susceptibility to contrary inclinations, successive or simultaneous; inconstancy, levity, [ ] in inclinations; the faculty of loving and hating order; the possibility of being wicked as well as good; indeterminate choice (which we call freedom): these belong to the essence of moral nature. This freedom is a necessary consequence of the mixture that composes it. To wish it otherwise would be to wish it did not exist. It is free—that is, capable of choosing, changing, growing worse, improving—because it is spirit and flesh. To ask that it be infallible, incorruptible, is to ask for wind that cannot move.

January 18.

I use the wings you have given me to rise to you.

The Purificatory. — A lower place, a low spot, a pit (the pit of nothingness) where whatever is thrown can never rise again. A great hollow where the remnants of shattered souls will be thrown away as refuse.

January 20.

The only strokes of praise that truly flatter are those that bear so close a likeness and hit so precisely, that have such truth that one would dare acknowledge them.

The height of the cranium, a long head, from the eyes to the crown, an elevated mind. A broad head, an extensive mind. A big head, an empty head.

Every talent has as its cause, its principle, its substance, and its essence the capacity to be more or less attentive. (vid. Aristote, top. lib. II.)

January 22.

Repentance is an effort of nature that drives the evils out of our soul (alias) its principles of corruption.

The trouble is that each age, each sex, etc. wants the goods that belong only to the other sex and to other ages, etc.

January 24.

J.-J. Rousseau. The impression of flesh touching spirit. No man has ever made soul and body feel more keenly the delights of their marriage.

January 25.

The wedding of soul and body... Their harmony is delicious, but their dissensions are cruel.

Young people. Those who are upright are preparing repentance for themselves, and the others punishments.

January 27.

Children must be taught the literal term and left to find the figurative one. Likewise, they should be taught only the round term and left to apply the fractional one.