n fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn,
looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of
the condition of men.

200

A man in a dungeon, ignorant whether his sentence be pronounced, and
having only one hour to learn it, but this hour enough, if he know that
it is pronounced, to obtain its repeal, would act unnaturally in
spending that hour, not in ascertaining his sentence, but in playing
piquet. So it is against nature that man, etc. It is making heavy the
hand of God.

Thus not only the zeal of those who seek Him proves God, but also the
blindness of those who seek Him not.

201

All the objections of this one and that one only go against themselves,
and not against religion. All that infidels say ...

202

[From those who are in despair at being without faith, we see that God
does not enlighten them; but as to the rest, we see there is a God who
makes them blind.]

203

_Fascinatio nugacitatis._[87]--That passion may not harm us, let us act
as if we had only eight hours to live.

204

If we ought to devote eight hours of life, we ought to devote a hundred
years.

205

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the
eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can
see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am
ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at
being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather
than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose
order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me?
_Memoria hospitis unius diei praetereuntis._[88]

206

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.

207

How many kingdoms know us not!

208

Why is my knowledge limited? Why my stature? Why my life to one hundred
years rather than to a thousand? What reason has nature had for giving
me such, and for choosing this number rather than another in the
infinity of those from which there is no more reason to choose one than
another, trying nothing else?

209

Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou
art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat
thee.

210

The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at
the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for
ever.

211

We are fools to de