Later in the book, Augustine himself goes through this metamorphosis. Human beings are not kind and good by birth and corrupted by the vices of this world; we are born tainted by the sin of Adam and Eve, and only grow more corrupt. Without God's guidance, we would wander farther and farther away from him. Throughout Confessions Augustine portrays himself, and by extension the human race, as unworthy, weak, and helpless. Man has no power over his fate. Unlike the Ancient ideal of arete, he cannot, by self-inspection and contemplation, achieve righteousness. He must turn to God and seek redemption, or be consigned to suffer in Hell. .
What Augustine calls infant jealousy manifests itself in every living being, man and animal, as the quest for survival. Augustine perceives this behavior as the first step that a human takes in turning away from God and his grace, and towards selfishness and the love of temporal power and of the material world. The infant's jealousy is not an innocent trait that will vanish with human love and care and the comprehension of social norms, says Augustine. It is the tip of the iceberg that is the true human nature. Humans are selfish and power-hungry. They seek to enforce their will upon others with no thought to the others' well being, and do so unashamedly and unabashedly since their birth. Given that even the first steps infants take are with nothing but self-interest in mind, this selfishness cannot have been a product of human society, but must have come from within. Here is one imagery Augustine uses is selfishness as infants' behavior when their unreasonable desires are not met: "For my desires were internal; adults were external to me and had no means of entering my soul When I did not get my way, either because I was not understood or lest it be harmful to me, I used to be indignant with my seniors for their disobedience, and I would revenge myself upon them by weeping.