Page:The reflections of Lichtenberg.djvu/83

 chemist would say; the philosopher gives us them pure. Very few people, it is safe to say, have ever really reflected on the significance of non-existence. To obtain an idea of the non-existence following death, I imagine the state in which I was before being born. It is not exactly apathy, for that may still be felt ; rather it is nothing at all. When we fall into this statethough here, to be sure, the words “we” and “state” no longer have any applicationit is, I fancy, something fully counter-balancing eternal life. As regards sensitive creatures, it is not existence and non-existence that are correlative, but non-existence and supreme bliss. One is equally well off, I suppose, in either case.

What is very rare seldom remains long unexplained. What is inexplicable is usually no longer rare, and has perhaps never been so.

The intellect is very good at grasping theory; judgment tells us how to apply it. In the latter quality very many are lacking, and frequently the greatest scholars and theorists most so. It is many years since it occurred to me that our world might be the work of some subordinate being, and I am still unable to rid myself of the idea. It is folly to imagine that a world having no sickness, no pain, and no death, is an impossibility. Why, we even represent Heaven to ourselves in this light. To