5
This sensitive point, in which the whole problem is summed up—for it is the only one in question; and, except in so far as it is concerned, immortality is certain—this mysterious point, to which, in the presence of death, we attach so high a value, we lose, strange to say, at any moment in life without feeling the least anxiety. Not only is it destroyed nightly in our sleep, but even in waking it is at the mercy of a host of accidents. A wound, a shock, an illness, a little alcohol, a little opium, a little smoke are enough to affect it. Even when nothing impairs it, it is not uniformly perceptible. An effort is often necessary, a deliberate looking into ourselves, before we can recover it and become aware of some particular event. At the least distraction, a joy passes by us without touching us, without giving up the pleasure which it contains. One would say that the functions of that organ by which we taste and know life are intermittent and that the presence of our ego, except in pain, is but a rapid and perpetual sequence of departures and returns. What reassures us is that we think ourselves certain to find it intact on awaking, after the wound, the shock or the distraction, whereas we are persuaded, so fragile do we feel it to be, that it is bound to disappear for ever in the awful impact between life and death.