XPost: sci.crypt, nb.forsale 
 From: me@here.now 
  
 ourselves to 
 any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, 
 it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for 
 us. This is our natural condition and yet most contrary to our inclination; 
 we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation 
 whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork 
 cracks, and the earth opens to abysses. 
  
 Let us, therefore, not look for certainty and stability. Our reason is 
 always deceived by fickle shadows; nothing can fix the finite between the 
 two Infinites, which both enclose and fly from it. 
  
 If this be well understood, I think that we shall remain at rest, each in 
 the state wherein nature has placed him. As this sphere which has fallen to 
 us as our lot is always distant from either extreme, what matters it that 
 man should have a little more knowledge of the universe? If he has it, he 
 but gets a little higher. Is he not always infinitely removed from the end, 
 and is not the duration of our life equally removed from eternity, even if 
 it lasts ten years longer? 
  
 In comparison with these Infinites, all finites are equal, and I see no 
 reason for fixing our imagination on one more than on another. The only 
 comparison which we make of ourselves to the finite is painful to us. 
  
 If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he 
 is of going further. How can a part know the whole? But he may perhaps 
 aspire to know at least the parts to which he bears some proportion. But the 
 parts of the world are all so related and linked to one another that I 
 believe it impossible to know one without the other and without the whole. 
  
 Man, for instance, is related to all he knows. He needs a place wherein to 
 abide, time through which to live, motion in order to live, elements to 
 compose him, warmth and food to nourish him, air to breathe. He sees light; 
 he feels bodies; in 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)