Ignorance - Page 2

not; I am too sensible that it is not I who give them to me, for they are born without my orders. Who produces them in me? whence do they come? whither do they go? Fugitive phantoms, what invisible hand produces you and causes you to disappear?

Why, alone of all animals, has man the mania for dominating his fellow-men?

Why and how has it been possible that of a hundred thousand million men more than ninety-nine have been immolated to this mania?

How is reason so precious a gift that we would not lose it for anything in the world? and how has this reason served only to make us the most unhappy of all beings?

Whence comes it that loving truth passionately, we are always betrayed to the most gross impostures?

Why is life still loved by this crowd of Indians deceived and enslaved by the bonzes, crushed by a Tartar's descendants, overburdened with work, groaning in want, assailed by disease, exposed to every scourge?

Whence comes evil, and why does evil exist?

O atoms of a day! O my companions in infinite littleness, born like me to suffer everything and to be ignorant of everything, are there enough madmen among you to believe that they know all these things? No, there are not; no, at the bottom of your hearts you feel your nonentity as I render justice to mine. But you are arrogant enough to want people to embrace your vain systems; unable to be tyrants over our bodies, you claim to be tyrants over our souls.