A Night Journey Round my Room

But having fixed on a prudent line of conduct for the future, by means of the clear chain of logic, which has been evolved in the last few chapters, the very important point remained of deciding on the course of the journey I was about to undertake. It is by no means sufficient to get into a carriage or to mount a horse, we must also know where we want to go.

I was so tired out by the metaphysical enquiries which had lately engaged me, that, before deciding on any particular quarter of the globe, I wished to rest for some time and think of nothing. This manner of living is also of my own invention, and I have often benefitted greatly from it; but it is not given to everybody to use it to advantage, for though it is easy to think profoundly by concentrating one's mind on any given subject, it is not easy to cut short the train of one's thoughts just as we stop the pendulum of a clock. Molière has most wrongly ridiculed a man who amused himself by making circles on a pond. For my part, I am very much inclined to believe that that man was a philosopher who had the power to stay the working of his mind in order to rest it, one of the most difficult feats the human mind can perform.