It would be a contradiction that what was yesterday was not, that what
is to-day is not; it is also a contradiction that what must be cannot
be.
If you could disturb the destiny of a fly, there would be no reason that
could stop your making the destiny of all the other flies, of all the
other animals, of all men, of all nature; you would find yourself in the
end more powerful than God.
Imbeciles say: "My doctor has extricated my aunt from a mortal malady;
he has made my aunt live ten years longer than she ought to have lived."
Others who affect knowledge, say: "The prudent man makes his own
destiny."
But often the prudent, far from making their destinies, succumb to them;
it is destiny which makes them prudent.
Profound students of politics affirm that, if Cromwell, Ludlow, Ireton
and a dozen other parliamentarians had been assassinated a week before
Charles I.'s head was cut off, this king might have lived longer and
died in his bed; they are right; they can add further that if the whole
of England had been swallowed up in the sea, this monarch would not
have perished on a scaffold near Whitehall; but things were arranged so
that Charles had to have his neck severed.
Cardinal d'Ossat was doubtless more prudent than a madman in Bedlam; but
is it not clear that the organs of d'Ossat the sage were made otherwise
than those of the scatter-brain? just as a fox's organs are different
from a stork's and a lark's.
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