Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
granddaughters; but Priam fell by the hand of an enemy, after having
fled to the altar, and having seen himself deprived of all his numerous
progeny. Had he died before the death of his sons and the ruin of his
kingdom,
With all his mighty wealth elate,
Under rich canopies of state;
would he then have been taken from good or from evil? It would indeed,
at that time, have appeared that he was being taken away from good; yet
surely it would have turned out advantageous for him; nor should we
have had these mournful verses,
Lo! these all perish'd in one flaming pile;
The foe old Priam did of life beguile,
And with his blood, thy altar, Jove, defile.
As if anything better could have happened to him at that time than to
lose his life in that manner; but yet, if it had befallen him sooner,
it would have prevented all those consequences; but even as it was, it
released him from any further sense of them. The case of our friend
Pompey[21] was something better: once, when he had been very ill at
Naples, the Neapolitans, on his recovery, put crowns on their heads, as
did those of Puteoli; the people flocked from the country to
congratulate him--it is a Grecian custom, and a foolish one; still it
is a sign of good fortune. But the question is, had he died, would he
have been taken from good, or from evil? Certainly from evil. He would
not have been engaged in a war with his father-in-law;[22] he would not
have taken up arms before he was prepared; he would not have left his
own house, nor fled from Italy; he would not, after the loss of his
army, have fallen unarmed into the hands of slaves, and been put to
death by them; his children would not have been destroyed; nor would
his whole fortune have come into the possession of the conquerors. Did
not he, then, who, if he had died at that time, would have died in all
his glory, owe all the great and terrible misfortunes into which he
subsequently fell to the prolongation of his life at that time?
XXXVI. These calamities are avoided by death, for even though they
should never happen, there is a possibility that they may; but it never
occurs to a man that such a disaster may befall him himself. Every one
hopes to be as happy as Metellus: as if the number of the happy
exceeded that of the miserable; or as if there were any certainty in
human affairs; or, again, as if there were more rational foundation for
hope than fear. But should we grant them even this, that men are by
death deprived of good things; would it follow that the dead are
therefore in need of the good things of life, and are miserable on that
account? Certainly they must necessarily say so. Can he who does not
exist be in need of anything? To be in need of has a melancholy sound,
because it in effect amounts to this--he had, but he has not; he
regrets, he looks back upon, he wants. Such are, I suppose, the
distresses of one who is in need of. Is he deprived of eyes? to be
blind is misery. Is he destitute of children? not to have them is
misery. These considerations apply to the living, but the dead are
neither in need of the blessings of life, nor of life itself. But when
I am speaking of the dead, I am speaking of those who have no
existence. But would any one say of us, who do exist, that we want
horns or wings? Certainly not. Should it be asked, why not? the answer
would be, that not to have what neither custom nor nature has fitted
you for would not imply a want of them, even though you were sensible
that you had them not. This argument should be pressed over and over
again, after that point has once been established, which, if souls are
mortal, there can be no dispute about--I mean, that the destruction of
them by death is so entire as to remove even the least suspicion of any
sense remaining. When, therefore, this point is once well grounded and
established, we must correctly define what the term to want means; that
there may be no mistake in the word. To want, then, signifies this: to
be without that which you would be glad to have; for inclination for a
thing is implied in the word want, excepting when we use the word in an
entirely different sense, as we do when we say that a fever is wanting
to any one. For it admits of a different interpretation, when you are
without a certain thing, and are sensible that you are without it, but
yet can easily dispense with having it. "To want," then, is an
expression which you cannot apply to the dead; nor is the mere fact of
wanting something necessarily lamentable. The proper expression ought
to be, "that they want a good," and that is an evil.
But a living man does not want a good, unless he is distressed without
it; and yet, we can easily understand how any man alive can be without
a kingdom. But this cannot be predicated of you with any accuracy: it
might have been asserted of Tarquin, when he was driven from his
kingdom. But when such an expression is used respecting the dead, it is
absolutely unintelligible. For to want implies to be sensible; but the
dead are insensible: therefore, the dead can be in no want.
XXXVII. But what occasion is there to philosophize here in a matter
with which we see that philosophy is but little concerned? How often
have not only our generals but whole armies, rushed on certain death!
But if it had been a thing to be feared, L. Brutus would never have
fallen in fight, to prevent the return of that tyrant whom he had
expelled; nor would Decius the father have been slain in fighting with
the Latins; nor would his son, when engaged with the Etruscans, nor his
grandson with Pyrrhus have exposed themselves to the enemy's darts.
Spain would never have seen, in one campaign, the Scipios fall fighting
for their country; nor would the plains of Cannae have witnessed the
death of Paulus and Geminus, or Venusia that of Marcellus; nor would
the Latins have beheld the death of Albinus, nor the Leucanians that of
Gracchus. But are any of these miserable now? Nay, they were not so
even at the first moment after they had breathed their last; nor can
any one be miserable after he has lost all sensation. Oh, but the mere
circumstance of being without sensation is miserable. It might be so if
being without sensation were the same thing as wanting it; but as it is
evident there can be nothing of any kind in that which has no
existence, what can there be afflicting to that which can neither feel
want nor be sensible of anything? We might be said to have repeated
this over too often, only that here lies all that the soul shudders at
from the fear of death. For whoever can clearly apprehend that which is
as manifest as the light--that when both soul and body are consumed,
and there is a total destruction, then that which was an animal becomes
nothing--will clearly see that there is no difference between a
Hippocentaur, which never had existence, and King Agamemnon, and that
M. Camillus is no more concerned about this present civil war than I
was at the sacking of Rome, when he was living.
XXXVIII. Why, then, should Camillus be affected with the thoughts of
these things happening three hundred and fifty years after his time?
And why should I be uneasy it I were to expect that some nation might
possess itself of this city ten thousand years hence? Because so great
is our regard for our country, as not to be measured by our own
feeling, but by its own actual safety.
Death, then, which threatens us daily from a thousand accidents, and
which, by reason of the shortness of life, can never be far off, does
not deter a wise man from making such provision for his country and his
family as he hopes may last forever; and from regarding posterity, of
which he can never have any real perception, as belonging to himself.
Wherefore a man may act for eternity, even though he be persuaded that
his soul is mortal; not, indeed, from a desire of glory, which he will
be insensible of, but from a principle of virtue, which glory will
inevitably attend, though that is not his object. The process, indeed,
of nature is this: that just in the same manner as our birth was the
beginning of things with us, so death will be the end; and as we were
noways concerned with anything before we were born, so neither shall we
be after we are dead. And in this state of things where can the evil
be, since death has no connection with either the living or the dead?
The one have no existence at all, the other are not yet affected by it.
They who make the least of death consider it as having a great
resemblance to sleep; as if any one would choose to live ninety years
on condition that, at the expiration of sixty, he should sleep out the
remainder. The very swine would not accept of life on those terms, much
less I. Endymion, indeed, if you listen to fables, slept once on a time
on Latmus, a mountain of Caria, and for such a length of time that I
imagine he is not as yet awake. Do you think that he is concerned at
the Moon's being in difficulties, though it was by her that he was
thrown into that sleep, in order that she might kiss him while
sleeping. For what should he be concerned for who has not even any
sensation? You look on sleep as an image of death, and you take that on
you daily; and have you, then, any doubt that there is no sensation in
death, when you see there is none in sleep, which is its near
resemblance?
XXXIX. Away, then, with those follies, which are little better than the
old women's dreams, such as that it is miserable to die before our
time. What time do you mean? That of nature? But she has only lent you
life, as she might lend you money, without fixing any certain time for
its repayment. Have you any grounds of complaint, then, that she
recalls it at her pleasure? for you received it on these terms. They
that complain thus allow that if a young child dies, the survivors
ought to bear his loss with equanimity; that if an infant in the cradle
dies, they ought not even to utter a complaint; and yet nature has been
more severe with them in demanding back what she gave. They answer by
saying that such have not tasted the sweets of life; while the other
had begun to conceive hopes of great happiness, and, indeed, had begun
to realize them. Men judge better in other things, and allow a part to
be preferable to none. Why do they not admit the same estimate in life?
Though Callimachus does not speak amiss in saying that more tears had
flowed from Priam than his son; yet they are thought happier who die
after they have reached old age. It would be hard to say why; for I do
not apprehend that any one, if a longer life were granted to him, would
find it happier. There is nothing more agreeable to a man than
prudence, which old age most certainly bestows on a man, though it may
strip him of everything else. But what age is long, or what is there at
all long to a man? Does not
Old age, though unregarded, still attend
On childhood's pastimes, as the cares of men?
But because there is nothing beyond old age, we call that long: all
these things are said to be long or short, according to the proportion
of time they were given us for. Artistotle saith there is a kind of
insect near the river Hypanis, which runs from a certain part of Europe
into the Pontus, whose life consists but of one day; those that die at
the eighth hour die in full age; those who die when the sun sets are
very old, especially when the days are at the longest. Compare our
longest life with eternity, and we shall be found almost as short-lived
as those little animals.
XL. Let us, then, despise all these follies--for what softer name can I
give to such levities?--and let us lay the foundation of our happiness
in the strength and greatness of our minds, in a contempt and disregard
of all earthly things, and in the practice of every virtue. For at