All reasoners since Thales, and
probably long before him, have played at blind man's buff with you; they
have said: "I have you!" and they had nothing. We all resemble Ixion; he
thought he was kissing Juno, and all that he possessed was a cloud.
NATURE:
Since I am all that is, how can a being such as you, so small a part of
myself, seize me? Be content, atoms my children, with seeing a few atoms
that surround you, with drinking a few drops of my milk, with vegetating
for a few moments on my breast, and with dying without having known your
mother and your nurse.
THE PHILOSOPHER:
My dear mother, tell me something of why you exist, of why there is
anything.
NATURE:
I will answer you as I have answered for so many centuries all those who
have interrogated me about first principles: I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEM.
THE PHILOSOPHER:
Would not non-existence be better than this multitude of existences made
in order to be continually dissolved, this crowd of animals born and
reproduced in order to devour others and to be devoured, this crowd of
sentient beings formed for so many painful sensations, that other crowd
of intelligences which so rarely hear reason. What is the good of all
that, Nature?
NATURE:
Oh! go and ask Him who made me.
_NECESSARY_
OSMIN:
Do you not say that everything is necessary?
SELIM:
If everything were not necessary, it would follow that God had made
useless things.
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