no certainty of reaching.

Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied
with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and
if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the
future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our
means; the future alone is our end.[78] So we never live, but we hope to
live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we
should never be so.


173

They say that eclipses foretoken misfortune, because misfortunes are
common, so that, as evil happens so often, they often foretell it;
whereas if they said that they predict good fortune, they would often be
wrong. They attribute good fortune only to rare conjunctions of the
heavens; so they seldom fail in prediction.


174

_Misery._--Solomon[79] and Job have best known and best spoken of the
misery of man; the former the most fortunate, and the latter the most
unfortunate of men; the former knowing the vanity of pleasures from
experience, the latter the reality of evils.


175