18 
A MAN 
H AVING shaken his head with both hands as though he 
were playing with dice, the man lets his thoughts 
arrange themselves in equilibrium on the nervous 
cords of his favorite instincts. “I have always disre 
garded things that came from my mind,” he said with 
out the slightest mocking smile. He looks in his pocket mirror 
at his eyes with his eyes, charming coincidence. The little hole 
opposite a little hole shows up the fine combination; all is 
changed, nothing is changed, it is you? It is I. Boring one, it 
is I. In the little hole in capitals of twelve one reads: 
IT IS BETTER TO KILL ONE’S FATHER THAN TO 
EAT NUTS or all other evidence: I think only by evidence. 
Having shaken my head with my two hands I read in the same 
apparatus before the fall of the dice, clickyty click. IT IS 
BETTER TO EAT ONE’S FATHER THAN TO KILL 
NUTS, then a click, the man’s eyes light up as though electri 
cally lighted, his mouth speaks: “For, as to manners, every 
body is so sure of his own point of view that it would be possible 
to find as many reformers as there are heads” and doesn’t favor 
the least in the world any other possibility. 
The little society game distinguishes me from the animals (I 
am a sociable animal) thanks to a pretty error which must be 
considered: the false movement, effect of light giving freely and 
without danger the impression of perpetual revolution, serve it 
hot that thought-out reasoning, reasonably reasoning! draw a 
line, you have the addition, make your total, the result will show 
an increase of my personality, flattering conclusions on life; my 
thermal season. The man opens his skull, with the index finger 
of his right hand he moves the reluctant counting balls, closes 
the box again, then with satisfaction shakes his head without his 
hands: noise. Thus morals begin. 
First, without other explanation than this invoked evidence 
the man denies that there could ever be any answer to a theorem, 
and affirms that corollaries are ways of speaking. That which 
saves him from the trouble of examining its validity. Do not do 
unto others that which you would not wish done unto you and its 
analogues. All the cases are exceptions, impossible to be united