My beloved mother, pray tell me a little why you exist—why anything has existed?
NATURE.
I will answer you in the language in which I always have answered, for so long a series of ages, those who have interrogated me on the subject of first principles: "I know nothing at all about the matter."
PHILOSOPHER.
Nothing itself, would it not be preferable to that multitude of existences formed to be continually dissolved; those tribes of animals born and reproduced to devour others, and devoured in their turn; those numberless beings endued with sensation, and formed to experience so many sensations of pain; and those other tribes of reasoning beings which never, or at least only rarely, listen to reason? For what purpose, Nature, was all this?
NATURE.
Oh! pray go and inquire of Him who made me.
NECESSARY—NECESSITY.
OSMIN.