are in such doubt; and thus the doubter
who does not seek is altogether completely unhappy and completely wrong. And
if besides this he is easy and content, professes to be so, and indeed
boasts of it; if it is this state itself which is the subject of his joy and
vanity, I have no words to describe so silly a creature.

How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find in the expectation
of nothing but hopeless misery? What reason for boasting that we are in
impenetrable darkness? And how can it happen that the following argument
occurs to a reasonable man?

"I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I
myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body
is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even that part of me which thinks what I
say, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the
rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I
find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I
am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is
given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of
the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see
nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom and as a
shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know is
that I must soon die, but what I know least is this very death which I
cannot escape.

"As I know not whence I come, so I know not whither I go. I know only that,
in leaving this