ve no longer any desire of glory;
and having no longer that desire, is it not true, that then mankind
would be like ice? I say, he would have no desire of glory, for right
reason shews us, that we should not make our happiness depend on the
judgment of other men; and consequently, that we should not toil and
fatigue ourselves, to make other people say this, or that, of us----.
The earnest desire of being praised after death is an instinct of
morality that God has impressed in the mind of man, to keep up society.
And it is certain, that earnest desire has been the cause of the
greatest events; and this ought to instruct us that the world stands in
need of a great many instincts, which, examined according to the ideas
of our reason, are ridiculous and absurd. For there is nothing so
opposite to reason as to torment ourselves in this life, that we may be
praised after we are dead, since neither philosophy, nor experience, nor
faith, nor any thing whatsover, makes it appear, that the praises given
us after death can do us any good. It would be a thing uneasy to the
heart of man, if we did nothing but according to the light of reason;
and how many designs would come to nothing at the same time?"

Thirdly, Besides, reason very often serves for nothing but to make us
wretched. "The happiness of man is never the work of reason." Of all our
evils reason is often the worst; it frightens us in the full career of
our pleasures, and with importunate remorses comes to bridle our fleet
desires. The horrid thing reserves for us most cruel and matchless
rigours. It is like a troublesome pedant one is forced to hear, who
always growls, but never touches us, and frequently like D------,
and such like venerable impertinents, lose the time they employ in
predication.

"If there be any happiness[4]," says Fontenelle, "that reason produces,
it is like that sort of health which cannot be maintained but by the
force of physic, and which is ever most feeble and uncertain." And in
another place he cries out, "[5]Can we not have sound sight without
being at the same time wretched and uneasy? Is there any thing gay but
error? And is reason made for any thing else but to torment and kill
us?" "[6]What cause have not men to bewail their wretched condition?
Nature furnishes them but with a very few things that are agreeable, and
their reason teaches them how to enjoy them yet less." "[7]And why has
Nature, in giving us passions which are sufficient t