To destroy the Stoic wisdom completely, one need know but one thing, which is sufficiently proved through experience and by what has already been said, that we are tied to our body, to our parents, to our friends, to our prince, to our country, by bonds we cannot break, and would even be ashamed to try to break. Our soul is joined to our body, and through our body to all visible things by a hand so powerful that it is impossible to loosen them by ourselves....One is never above nature, unless through grace, and a Stoic will never hold the glory and esteem of men in contempt simply through the strength of his mind.
Malebranche, The Search After Truth 2.3.4 (LO 182-183).
