them; but as to the rest, we see there is a God who makes
them blind.

203. Fascinatio nugacitatis.[26] --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.[27]

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 depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as
we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We
should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build
fine houses, etc. We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we
refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for
tru