“Everything is always changing in nature, writes La Mettrie; everything is subject to the vicissitudes of fate. Suddenly, the clouds can obscure the warmth of the sun, but also, conversely, in the darkest night a star can appear at the horizon to bring joy to us mortals: 'It is hope, whose soft rays sometimes pierce adversity itself, and come to raise up within the downcast soul a dismayed and withered courage' [DB, 209, (third edition); DB, 227 (second edition)]. If everything is subject to change, then so too is adversity. Things can always get worse, but also, things can always get better, and it is in this knowledge that we may find our hope. That which makes life tragic is also what makes it comic; that which takes away our hope is also what gives it back to us. This kind of hope may seem but a feeble one, it is true, but from La Mettrie's point of view at least it is a solid hope, a true hope (like many pessimists, he is averse to 'false' hope), which it can only be for him because it is also, crucially, a secular hope. And it is this notion of hope as well as consolation, that makes La Mettrie not only a pessimistic optimist, but also a hopeful pessimist.”