The continuos work of our life,34; says Montaigne, 34;is to build death.34; He quotes the Latinpoets: Prima, quae vitam dedit, hora corpsit. And again: Nascentes morimur. Man knowsand thinks this tragic ambivalence which the animal and the plant merely undergo. A newparadox is thereby introduced into his destiny. 34;Rational animal,34; 34;thinking reed,34; heescapes from his natural condition without, however, freeing himself from it. He is still apart of this world of which he is a consciousness. He asserts himself as a pure internalityagainst which no external power39; can take hold, and he also experiences himself as athing crushed by the dark weight of other things. At every moment he can grasp the nontemporaltruth of his existence. But between the past which no longer is and the futurewhich ...