Let no man fear what doth his labors end;—and death sets us free even from the greatest evils.
If death be like a journey, neither upon this account
is it an evil, but rather the contrary; for certainly it is the
emphasis of happiness to be freed from the incumbrances
of the flesh and all those troublesome passions which attend
it, which serve only to darken the understanding, and overspread it with all the folly that is incident to human
nature.
‘The very body,’ saith Plato, ‘procures us infinite disquiet only to supply its daily necessities with food; but if any
diseases are coincident, they hinder our contemplations, and
stop us in our researches after truth. Besides, it distracts
us with irregular desires, fears, and vain amours, setting
before us so many fantastic images of things, that the common saying is here most true, that on account of the body
we can never become wise. For wars, popular seditions,
and shedding of blood by the sword are owing to no other
original than this care of the body and gratifying its licentious appetites; for we fight only to get riches, and these
[p. 312]
we acquire only to please the body; so that those who are
thus employed have not leisure to be philosophers. And
after all, when we have retrieved an interval of time to
seek after truth, the body officiously interrupts us, is so
troublesome and importune, that we can by no means discern its nature. Therefore it is evident that, if we will
clearly know any thing, we must divest ourselves of the
body, and behold things as they are in themselves with the
mind itself, that at last we may attain what we so much
desire, and what we do profess ourselves the most partial
admirers of, which is wisdom. And this we cannot consummately enjoy till after death, as reason teacheth us.
For if so be that we can understand nothing clearly as long
as we are clogged with flesh, one of these things must
needs be, either that we shall never arrive at that knowledge at all, or only when we die; for then the soul will
exist by itself, separate from the body; and whilst we are
in this life, we shall make the nearest advances towards it,
if we have no more to do with the body than what decency
and necessity require, if we break off all commerce with it,
and keep ourselves pure from its contagion, till God shall
give us a final release, and then being pure and freed from
all its follies, we shall converse (it is likely) with intelligences as pure as ourselves, with our unaided vision beholding perfect purity,—and this is truth itself. For it is
not fit that what is pure should be apprehended by what is
impure.’
1
Therefore, if death only transports us to another place,
it is not to be looked upon as an evil, but rather as an exceeding good, as Plato hath demonstrated. The words of
Socrates to his judges seem to me to be spoken even with
inspiration: ‘To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing else than
to counterfeit the being wise, when we are not so. For
he that fears death pretends to know what he is ignorant
[p. 313]
of; for no man is certain whether death be not the greatest
good that can befall a man, but they positively dread it as
if they were sure it was the greatest of evils.’ Agreeably
to this said one after this manner:—
1 Plat. Phaed. pp. 66 B—67 B.
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