ebar us from reaching,
seeing or feeling it, but even restrain us from suspecting what it
is, just as they would prevent us from understanding it, if an
intelligence of a different order were to bethink itself of revealing
or explaining it to us. It is impossible for us, therefore, to
appreciate in any degree whatsoever, in the smallest conceivable
respect, the present state of the universe and to say, as long as we
are men, whether it follows a straight line or describes an immense
circle, whether it is growing wiser or madder, whether it is advancing
towards the eternity which has no end or retracing its steps towards
that which had no beginning. Our sole privilege within our tiny
confines is to struggle towards that which appears to us the best and
to remain heroically persuaded that no part of what we do within those
confines can ever be wholly lost.

XXX

IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO ANSWER
THEM

But let not all these insoluble questions drive us towards fear. From
the point of view of our future beyond the grave, it is in no way
necessary that we should have an answer to everything. Whether the
universe have already found its consciousness, whether it find it one
day or see it everlastingly, it could not exist for the purpose of
being unhappy and of suffering, neither in its entirety, nor in any
one of its parts; and it matters little if the latter be invisible or
incommensurable, considering that the smallest is as great as the
greatest in what has neither limit nor measure. To torture a point
is the same thing as to torture the worlds; and, if it torture the
worlds, it is its own substance that it tortures. Its very destiny, in
which we are placed, protects us. Our sufferings there could be but
ephemeral; and nothing matters that is not eternal. It is possible,
although somewhat incomprehensible, that parts should err and go
astray; but it is impossible that sorrow should be one of its lasting
and necessary laws; for it would have brought that law to bear against
itself. In like manner, the universe is and must be its own law and
its sole master; if not, the law or the master whom it must obey
would then be the universe; and the centre of a word which we
pronounce without being able to grasp its scope would be simply
displaced. If it be unhappy, that means that it wills its own
unhappiness; if it will its unhappiness, it is mad; and, if it appear
to us mad, that means that our reason works contrary to