When I consider the brief span of my

life, swallowed up in the eternity before

and behind it, the small space that I fill,

or even see, engulfed in the infinite

immensity of spaces which I know not,

and which know not me, I am afraid,

and wonder to see myself here rather

than there; for there is no reason why I

should be here rather than there, now,

rather than then.

Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.