2i 4 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. v 



more awful by cloud and thunder, and by whirlwinds 

 that rend the frail bark in pieces ; what reward shall 

 we have for all the toil and anxiety ? What harbour 

 will give us hospitable shelter, worn out as we are 

 with so many sufferings ? War, I trow, will meet 

 us, and an enemy ready prepared on shore and 

 tribes destined to cruel slaughter, but not without 

 much damage to the conqueror, and ancient cities 

 in flames. Why do we press whole nations into 

 arms ? Why do we enrol armies to marshal 



7 their lines amid the billows ? Why do we dis 

 quiet the seas ? The land, I suppose, is not wide 

 enough to compass our death. Fortune deals too 

 tenderly with us : she has given us too hardy 

 bodies, too sound health. No ravage of plague 

 cuts us off: each one may comfortably fill up the 

 measure of his years and reach the haven of old age. 

 So let us launch upon the deep and call toward us 

 the loitering fates. Poor wretches, what is it ye 

 seek ? Death, which is always too much with us ? 

 It will attack you, even in your couch ; well, see 

 that the victims it attacks are innocent of crime. It 

 will seize you in your house ; be sure it find you 

 planning no mischief. 



s But what can one call it but plain insanity 

 actually to carry destruction in your train, to 

 rush in anger against men you never saw, to lay 

 waste without provocation all that comes in your 

 path, and, after the fashion of wild beasts, to kill 

 a man you do not hate ? We are worse than 

 beasts, for they bite only in retaliation or from 

 hunger ; but we, utterly lavish of our own and 

 others blood, harass the seas by the vessels we 

 launch, entrust our safety to the waves, and pray for 

 favouring winds, counting it our good fortune to be 



