It is true, that in order to free ourselves from a sentiment of gratitude, we often think that we would not accept of a renewal of life, on condition of our running over a second time our career, and returning step by step in the same track. But we should consider, that we do not fix a just value on the benefits which we have received; for when we take a retrospective view of life, we see it stripped of its two principal ornaments, curiosity and hope; and it is not in this state that it was given to us, and that we have enjoyed it. It is, perhaps, not in our power to replace ourselves, by contemplation, in the situation where the imagination made our chief pleasure, a slight breath has easily effaced it from our memory: it is evident that we enjoy life, because we look forward with affright to the moment when we shall be forced to renounce it; but, as this happiness is composed of present pleasures, and those which we anticipate, we cease to be good judges of the value of life, when this future prospect is not presented to our eyes, but under the form of the past; for we know not how to appreciate, with a languishing recollection, that which we have loved in the moment of hope. Physical evils are not either the end or the condition of our nature, they are its accidents: the happiness of infancy, which shows in its primitive purity the works of the Deity, visibly point out the goodness of the Supreme Being; and how can we avoid believing, that we owe our origin to a benevolent design, since it is a desire of happiness, which has been given to serve as the motive of all our actions? We should indeed speak well of life, if we had not corrupted its comforts by artificial sentiments, which we have substituted instead of nature; if we had not submitted so many realities to pride and vanity; if, instead of assisting each other to be happy, we had not employed our thoughts to make others submit to us. Undoubtedly there are some sufferings annexed to our existence, as in the natural world there are apparent defects. Let us employ our minds on the most exalted subjects, and we shall no longer be a prey to envy and discontent.