2430. That there is such an operation of spirits in men who trust to themselves and their own prudence, it was given me to know from innumerable experiences, so that it is a truth, in which faith should be reposed, when yet it is nothing but a permission of evil spirits to persuade men thus, and when man is such, that all his counsels are so firmly believed in, they tend to his own ruin and that of the community [communis rei], for those things which [originating] from evil spirits [proceed] as from himself, tend to his ruin.