the dreadful
necessity of being for ever either annihilated or unhappy.

There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible. Be we as heroic
as we like, that is the end which awaits the world. Let us reflect on this
and then say whether it is not beyond doubt that there is no good in this
life but in the hope of another; that we are happy only in proportion as we
draw near it; and that, as there are no more woes for those who have
complete assurance of eternity, so there is no more happiness for those who
have no insight into it.

Surely then it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at least an
indispensable duty to seek when we are in such doubt; and thus the doubter
who does not seek is altogether completely unhappy and completely wrong. And
if besides this he is easy and content, professes to be so, and indeed
boasts of it; if it is this state itself which is the subject of his joy and
vanity, I have no words to describe so silly a creature.

How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find in the expectation
of nothing but hopeless misery? What reason for boasting that we are in
impenetrable darkness? And how can it happen that the following argument
occurs to a reasonable man?