Vice

Use in the book

The haste of French authors is traced to a fundamental vice in their ways of life: living and enjoying too quickly. The move runs from conduct to literary fault. Vanity and dissimulation then receive different classifications, passion and vice, despite both being susceptible to criticism. The fragment on falsified truths locates vice in the mind expressing or receiving them; distortion need not arise from an accidental copying error. These cases place moral evaluation within habits of thought and expression.

Places to read

1. I, p. 46, entry begun p. 45, no. 3, ¶15Cultural haste is treated as the root of literary faults.
2. I, p. 257, entry begun p. 256, no. 6, ¶3Passion and vice are explicitly distinguished.
3. II, p. 844, entry 5, ¶1A mind’s vice can falsify truths in expression or reception.

Translation in this edition

The English translation keeps vice distinct from faults and passions. It retains the expression/receiving alternatives in the final parenthesis, and “Of truths falsified” remains a topical fragment rather than a complete explanatory proposition.

Use in the book

The account of the world’s injuries lists rapacity, covetousness, envy, oppression, luxury, ambition, and pride. These are not flaws in stars or seas; they are forms of human relation that turn an ordered creation into a scene of conflict. A philosophical life must therefore subdue vices and govern passions rather than merely contemplate happiness.

Other people’s vices also test the reader’s charity. They can become occasions for patience, courage, and beneficence, as thorns become the material of a crown in the imitation of Christ. This does not make the wrongdoing virtuous in itself. The transformation concerns the response of the injured person, who refuses to let another’s fault dictate the character of his own action.

Places to read

1. IV.24Specific vices are identified as causes of the world’s social disfigurement.
2. IV.8The philosopher’s life requires mastery of vice and passion.
3. I.84Others’ vices can occasion virtues in the charitable response.

In this edition

The limiting words “to you” in I.84 are essential. The passage does not excuse the offender or convert the wrongful act itself into goodness; it describes the injured person’s virtuous response.