If, however, death is really a complete destruction and dissolution of both
body and soul (for this was the third of Socrates' conjectures), even so it
is not an evil. For, according to him, there ensues a sort of insensibility
and a liberation from all pain and anxiety. For just as no good can attach
to us in such a state, so also can no evil; for just as the good, from its
nature, can exist only in the case of that which is and has substantiality,
so it is also with the evil. But in the case of that which is not, but has
been removed from the sphere of being, neither of them can have any real
existence. Now those who have died return to the same state in which they
were before birth ; therefore, as nothing was either good or evil for us
before birth, even so will it be with us after death. And just as all events
before our lifetime were nothing to us, even so will all events subsequent
to our lifetime be nothing to us. For in reality
[p. 151]
No suffering affects the dead,1
since
Not to be born I count the same as death.2
For the
condition after the end of life is the same as that before birth. But do you
imagine that there is a difference between not being born at all, and being
born and then passing away? Surely not, unless you assume also that there is
a difference in a house or a garment of ours after its destruction, as
compared with the time when it had not yet been fashioned. But if there is
no difference in these cases, it is evident that there is no difference in
the case of death, either, as compared with the condition before birth.
Arcesilaus puts the matter neatly : ‘This that we call an evil,
death, is the only one of the supposed evils which, when present, has
never caused anybody any pain, but causes pain when it is not present
but merely expected.’ As a matter of fact, many people, because
of their utter fatuity and their false opinion regarding death, die in their
effort to keep from dying.
3 Excellently does
Epicharmus
4
put it:
To be and not to be hath been his
fate;
once more
Gone is he whence he
came, earth back to earth, The soul on high. What here is evil ?
Naught.
Cresphontes in some play of Euripides,
5 speaking of Heracles,
says :
For if he dwells beneath the depths of earth
'Mid lifeless shades, his vigour would be naught.
[p. 153] This you might rewrite and say,
For if he dwells beneath the depths of earth 'Mid
lifeless shades, his dolour would be naught.
Noble also is the
Spartan song
6:
Here now are we ; before us others
throve, and others still straightway, But we shall never live to see
their day ;
and again :
Those who have
died and who counted no honour the living or dying, Only to consummate
both nobly were honour for them.7
Excellently does Euripides
8 say of those who patiently endure long illnesses :
I hate the men who would prolong their lives By foods
and drinks and charms of magic art, Perverting nature's course to keep
off death ; They ought, when they no longer serve the land, To quit this
life, and clear the way for youth.
And Merope
9 stirs the theatres by expressing manly
sentiments when she speaks the following words :
Not mine the only children who have died, Nor I the only woman robbed
of spouse ; Others as well as I have drunk life's dregs.
With
this the following might be appropriately combined :
[p. 155]
Where now are all those things magnificentGreat
Croesus, lord of Lydia ? Xerxes, too, Who yoked the sullen neck of
Hellespont ? Gone all to Hades and Oblivion's house,10
and their wealth perished with their bodies.
