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 trifling than the buzzing of a fly seems now. By death you will escape this tumult, and beyond this life you certainly will not long to participate in it. Do you now long for the playthings which in your childhood you loved so much that you would have wept had they been taken away from you?”

“But after childhood comes youth.”

“We know not what was our condition before this life; we know not what we shall be hereafter—it is a secret, because man should not look backward or forward, but perform his duty well while he is here. So far as we can investigate, we find that the laws governing man in this world are the same as those governing every drop of water, every leaf, every particle of matter. What often seems to us caprice or cruelty in nature is only that which destroys our hobby or interferes with our comfort. And this dissatisfaction with life’s experiences is felt even by the lower animals. Does not a worm struggle if you shake him off a rosebud into the grass? Does he not become angry because you did