ll that we
ourselves do can have no influence upon it. If it have no thought,
it will never have one. If it have one, that thought has been at its
climax since all time and will remain there, changeless and immovable.
It is as young as it has ever been and as old as it will ever be. It
has made in the past all the efforts and all the experiments which it
will make in the future; and, as all the possible combinations have
been exhausted since all time, it does not seem as if that which has
not taken place in the eternity that extends before our birth can
happen in that which will follow after our death. If it have not
become conscious, it will never become so; if it know not what it
wishes, it will continue in ignorance, hopelessly, knowing all or
knowing nothing and remaining as near its end as its beginning.

XXII

INFINITY AS PERCEIVED BY OUR
SENSES

All this would be, if not intelligible, at least acceptable to our
reason; but in that universe float thousands of millions of worlds
limited by space and time. They are born, they die and they are born
again. They form part of the whole; and we see, therefore, that parts
of that which has neither beginning nor end themselves begin and end.
We, in fact, know only those parts; and they are of a number so
infinite that in our eyes they fill all infinity. That which is going
nowhere teems with that which appears to be going somewhere. That
which has always known what it wants, or will never learn, seems
eternally to be making more or less unfortunate experiments. What
is that which has already attained perfection trying to achieve?
Everything that we discover in that which could not possibly have an
aim looks as though it were pursuing one with inconceivable ardour;
and the spirit that animates what we see in that which should know
everything and possess itself seems to know nothing and to seek itself
without intermission. Thus all that is apparent to our senses in
infinity gainsays that which our reason is compelled to ascribe to
it. According as we fathom it, we understand better the depth of our
want of understanding; and, the more we strive to penetrate the two
incomprehensibilities that stand face to face, the more they
contradict each other.

XXIII

WHICH OF THE TWO SHALL WE
KNOW?

What will become of us amid all this obscurity? Shall we leave the
finite wherein we dwell to be swallowed up in this or the other
infinite? In other words,