On Prayer 6.2

Those, then, who wish nothing to be in our power will necessarily accept something most silly: first, that we are not living creatures, and second, that we are not rational either, but that, as if moved by something outside us, and not moving ourselves at all, we would be said to do, by that mover, what we are thought to do. Besides, let anyone attend to his own experiences and see whether he will not be shameless if he says that it is not he himself who wills, not he himself who eats, not he himself who walks, nor he himself who assents to and accepts whatever doctrines he does, nor he himself who rejects others as false. Just as, then, it is impossible for a man to be convinced of certain doctrines, even if someone argues for them ten thousand times with ingenuity and plausible reasoning, so it is impossible for anyone to be so disposed about human affairs as though what is in our power were in no way preserved. For who is really disposed to think that nothing can be grasped, or lives as one who suspends judgment about everything whatever? And who, on forming the impression that a servant has done wrong, does not rebuke the servant? And who is there who does not blame a son for failing in his duty to his parents, or does not reproach and censure the adulteress as having done something shameful? For the truth forces and compels us, even if someone argues ingeniously ten thousand times, to act on impulse and to praise and blame, as though what is in our power were preserved and it were we who become praiseworthy or blameworthy.