This
superstition, that God is against us, is deep-seated in human nature,
as the universal practice of "touching wood" sufficiently
demonstrates. If a man says, "I haven't had a cold this winter," his
friends will advise him to touch wood; and if he wakes up the next
morning snuffling, he will probably soliloquise, "What a fool I was!
Why couldn't I keep still? Why did I have to mention it? Now see
what I've got!"
Caliban disagreed with his mother Sycorax on one important point.
She believed in the future life. Caliban says such a belief is absurd.
There can be nothing worse than this life. Its good moments are
simply devices of God to strengthen us so that He can torture us
again, just as in the good old times the executioners gave the
sufferers they were tormenting some powerful stimulant, so that they
might return to consciousness and suffer; for nothing cheated the
spectators worse than to have the victim die during the early stages
of the torture. The object was to keep the wretch alive as long as
possible.
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