But it is impossible that nature could be understood by human reason after the fall of Adam, in consequence of which it was perverted …

The corruption of our nature was unknown to the philosophers who, in other respects were sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, acute. Surely this stupor was itself a signal proof of original sin. For all who are not utterly blind perceive that no part of us is sound; that the mind is smitten with blindness, and infected with innumerable errors … corruption does not reside in one part only, but pervades the whole soul, and each of its faculties.

Whenever I think of this darkness of the soul, this weakness and sad servitude, I am almost out of my mind with horror. But with what grief and commotion of the mind need we reckon that the first ancestors thought the same; since they had seen the earlier light and harmony of nature and were endowed with the greatest excellency of intellect, they could reckon more correctly the greatness of their disaster, and judge to what a cruel tyrant they were subject.