"We hold as a tradition concerning the gods, and we see by experience concerning men, that always, by a necessity of nature, every being exercises all the power at its disposal" (Thucydides). Like a gas, the soul tends to fill the entire space granted to it. A gas that would contract and leave a void would be contrary to the law of entropy. This is not so with the God of the Christians. He is a supernatural God, whereas Jehovah is a natural God. Not to exercise all the power at one's disposal is to bear the void. This is contrary to all the laws of nature: grace alone can do it. Grace fills, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself that makes this void. The necessity of a reward, of receiving the equivalent of what one gives. But if, doing violence to this necessity, one leaves a void, something like a suction is produced, and a supernatural reward comes. It does not come if one receives another wage: this void draws it in. The same is true of the remission of debts (this concerns not only the evil others have done us but the good we have done them). There too one accepts a void in oneself. To accept a void in oneself is supernatural. Where can one find the energy for an act that has no counterpart? The energy must come from elsewhere. Yet first there must be a tearing away, something desperate; first a void must be produced. Void: dark night. Admiration, pity (the mixture of both especially) bring real energy. But one must do without them. One must be for a time without reward, natural or supernatural. A representation of the world is needed in which there is void, so that the world may need God. This presupposes evil. To love truth means to bear the void, and consequently to accept death. Truth is on the side of death. Man escapes the laws of this world only for the duration of a flash. Instants of pause, of contemplation, of pure intuition, of mental void, of acceptance of moral void. It is through these instants that he is capable of the supernatural. Whoever bears the void for a moment either receives the supernatural bread or falls. A terrible risk, but one must run it, and even for a moment without hope. But one must not throw oneself into it.