The separate member, seeing no longer the body to which it belongs, has only a perishing and dying existence. Yet it believes it is a whole, and seeing not the body on which it depends, it believes it depends only on self, and desires to make itself both centre and body. But not having in itself a principle of life, it only goes astray, and is astonished in the uncertainty of its being; perceiving in fact that it is not a body, and still not seeing that it is a member of a body. In short, when it comes to know itself, it has returned as it were to its own home, and loves itself only for the body. It deplores its past wanderings.

Place: SECTION VII · ¶1380
License: Public domain · Source
The text is given as in the edition, unedited.

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0

The separate member, seeing no longer the body to which it belongs, ha… — Pensées