Page:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy (Volume 7).pdf/51

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[45]

In Lessius's time, who seems the cooler man, they were as little as can be imagined——

———We find them less now——

And next winter we shall find them less again; so that if we go on from little to less, and from less to nothing, I hesitate not one moment to affirm, that in half a century, at this rate, we shall have no souls at all; which being the period beyond which I doubt likewise of the existence of the Christian faith, 'twill be one advantage that both of 'em will be exactly worn out together——

Blessed Jupiter! and blessed every other heathen god and goddess! fornow