What is his first sensation? A sensation of pain; then the pleasure of feeding. That is the whole of our life: pain and pleasure. Whence have we these two springs which keep us in action until our last moment, if not from this first principle of action, this Demiourgos? Assuredly we do not give pain to ourselves; and how could we be the cause of our few pleasures? We have said elsewhere that it is impossible for us to invent a new kind of pleasure—that is to say, a new sense. Let us now say that it is equally impossible for us to invent a new kind of pain. The most execrable of tyrants cannot do it. The Jews, whose tortures have been described by the Benedictine monk Calmet in his dictionary, could only cut, tear, mutilate, draw, burn, strangle, and crush; all torments may thus be summarised. We can therefore do nothing of ourselves, either for good or evil; we are but the blind instruments of nature.
But I wish to think and I think, most men will recklessly assert. Let us consider it. What was our first idea after the feeling of pain? The idea of the breast that we sucked; then the face of the nurse; then a few other objects and needs made their faint impressions. Would any one up to this point venture to say that he was more than a sentient automaton, a wretched abandoned animal destitute of knowledge or power, an outcast of nature? Will he venture to say that in this condition he is a thinking being, the author of his own ideas, the possessor of a soul? What is the son of a king when he leaves the womb? He would excite the disgust of his father, if he were not his father. A
