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LICHTENBERG'S REFLECTIONS

unhappy by but one of the three being amiss. Religion has even added a fourth—eternity.


There are people who have so little courage in affirming anything that they hardly trust themselves to say that the wind is cold, no matter how keenly they may feel it, unless they have previously heard that others have said so.


With most people unbelief in one thing is founded upon blind belief in another.


Men do not think so variously of the events of life as they speak of them.


Is it not strange that mankind should so willingly battle for religion and so unwillingly live according to its precepts?


There are sinners of an enthusiastically penitent description, who already begin to do penance in the recital of their misdeeds, and find a certain relief in self-accusation. Rousseau was possibly in this situation—the time has not yet come for any defence ; the man must be judged as a whole. It is as though we were to hesitate to believe an experience because it was at variance with a long accepted theory. A life such as Rousseau, to all appearances, represented his own to have been, must not be judged by any standard of moral etiquette, or according to lives not written on the Rousseau plan. Unless we describe our life as it is apparent to God,