Book 1, Chapter 34

82 “I see that you are looking upward and want to move to heaven. I hope that will be our fortune. But suppose, as these men maintain, that souls do not remain after death. I see that, if this is so, we are deprived of the hope of a happier life; but what evil does that opinion bring? Suppose the soul perishes just as the body does. Is there, then, any pain or any sensation at all in the body after death? No one says so, though Epicurus accuses Democritus of it and the followers of Democritus deny the charge. No sensation therefore remains in the soul either: the soul itself no longer exists anywhere. Where, then, is the evil, since there is no third thing? Is it that the soul’s actual departure from the body is not painless? Even if I believed that, how slight a thing it would be! But I think it false: it generally happens without sensation, sometimes even with pleasure. Whatever the experience may be, the whole thing is trivial,

83 “for it happens in an instant. ‘What troubles, or rather torments, us is parting from all the good things in life.’ Consider whether ‘from the evils’ might be truer. Why should I now lament human life? I can do so truly and justly; but while trying to prevent our thinking that we shall be miserable after death, why must I make life still more miserable by bewailing it? I did that in the book in which I consoled myself as best I could. Death, then, takes us away from evils, not from good things, if we look for the truth. Indeed, Hegesias of Cyrene argues this at such length that King Ptolemy is said to have forbidden him to discuss it in his school, because many who heard him took their own lives.

84 “Callimachus has an epigram on Theombrotus of Ambracia, who, he says, had suffered no misfortune but threw himself from a wall into the sea after reading Plato’s book. And the Hegesias I mentioned wrote a book called The Man Starving Himself to Death, in which a man who is leaving life by refusing food is urged back by his friends. Answering them, he enumerates the troubles of human life. I could do the same, though less fully than he, who thinks living is of no benefit to anyone at all. To leave others aside: is it even of benefit to me? Deprived as I am of the consolations and distinctions both of home and of public life, certainly, had I died earlier, death would have torn me from evils, not from good things.”

82 “You’re aiming high, I see: you want to go and live in heaven. I hope we both get there. Still, let’s accept their claim for a moment: the soul doesn’t outlast death. That would take away our hope of a happier existence, certainly. But where is the evil in that belief? Assume that soul and body perish alike. A dead body feels no pain, does it? Does it feel anything whatever? Nobody claims it does. Epicurus charges Democritus with that claim, but Democritus’s followers deny the charge. The soul, too, can retain no feeling: it no longer exists. With no third thing besides these two, where can the evil be? Perhaps you mean the pain of the soul leaving the body. Even if I granted that pain, how tiny a thing it would be! I don’t believe there is any. Usually the departure isn’t felt; sometimes it’s actually pleasant. Whatever it involves, it matters little,

83 “taking only a moment. Someone objects, ‘Leaving everything good in life—that’s what hurts, or rather tortures us.’ Wouldn’t ‘everything bad’ be nearer the truth? I could quite properly describe human life in sorrowful terms. But why do that now? I’m trying to remove the prospect of misery after death, not make life itself more miserable by lamenting it. In the book where I offered myself what comfort I could, I already did that. The truth, then, is that death removes us from evils rather than blessings. Hegesias of Cyrene argued this at such length that, so the story goes, King Ptolemy banned the subject from his classes: many people killed themselves after hearing him.

84 “Callimachus wrote a short poem about Theombrotus, a man from Ambracia. According to it, he read Plato’s book and jumped off a wall into the sea, although he’d suffered no misfortune. The Hegesias I mentioned wrote The Man Starving Himself. Its main figure is refusing food in order to die. Friends urge him to go on living; his answer is a list of the hardships people face. I could do the same, though I wouldn’t go as far as he does: he denies that life benefits anyone at all. Never mind anyone else. Does it benefit even us? We’ve been stripped of the comfort and honor we had at home and in public life. Had we died sooner, death would surely have spared us evils rather than deprived us of blessings.”