What is the remembrance of former things? We find it hard to conceive of a time when we will be gone from the earth, except in a very theoretical way. Men and women, knowing that they cannot stay alive indefinitely, hope somehow to be preserved in other people’s memories, but most feel no obligation to keep alive those memories and what good would it do anyway? Vast numbers of lives have disappeared; the self-important are now totally unknown, the achievements of the proud have been lost, the anxieties of the fearful are of no consequence. Earth has been wiped clean, like a beach by the incoming tide; the tide goes out and leaves a new blank tableau for the next generation to start again. Life is therefore worth nothing if it is measured by what is remembered. But what else does the unbeliever have since he is convinced there is no afterlife, no God, no world to come? Such vain things as the memories of the next generation are all they have left to console themselves with.