Yea, she presently evaporates, disperses, and perishes, even before the
body itself; so that it seems her great and excessive rejoicing must be
only for having learned this one sage and divine maxim, that all her
misfortunes will at last determine in her own destruction, dissolution,
and annihilation.
24. But (said he, looking upon me) I should be impertinent, should
I say any thing upon this subject, when we have heard you but now
discourse so fully against those that would persuade us that Epicurus’s
doctrine about the soul renders men more disposed and better pleased to
die than Plato’s doth. Zeuxippus therefore subjoined and said: And must
our present debate be left then unfinished because of that? Or shall we
be afraid to oppose that divine oracle to Epicurus? No, by no means, I
said; and Empedocles tells us that
What’s very good claims to be heard twice.
Therefore we must apply ourselves again to Theon; for I think he was
present at our former discourse; and moreover, he is a young man, and
needs not fear being charged by these young gentlemen with having a bad
memory.
25. Then Theon, like one constrained, said: Well then, if you will
needs have me to go on with the discourse, I will not do as you did,
Aristodemus. For you were shy of repeating what this gentleman spoke,
but I shall not scruple to make use of what you have said; for I think
indeed you did very well divide mankind into three ranks; the first of
wicked and very bad men, the second of the vulgar and common sort, and
the third of good and wise men. The wicked and bad sort then, while
they dread any kind of divine vengeance and punishment at all, and are
by this deterred from doing mischief, and thereby enjoy the greater
quiet, will live both in more pleasure and in less disturbance for it.
And Epicurus is of opinion that the only proper means to keep men from
doing ill is the fear of punishments. So that we should cram them with
more and more superstition still, and raise up against them terrors,
chasms, frights, and surmises, both from heaven and earth, if their
being amazed with such things as these will make them become the more
tame and gentle. For it is more for their benefit to be restrained from
criminal actions by the fear of what comes after death, than to commit
them and then to live in perpetual danger and fear.
26. As to the vulgar sort, besides their fear of what is in hell, the
hope they have conceived of an eternity from the tales and fictions
of the ancients, and their great desire of being, which is both the
earliest and the strongest of all, exceed in pleasure and sweet content
of mind that childish dread. And therefore, when they lose their
children, wives or friends, they would rather have them be somewhere
and still remain, though in misery, than that they should be quite
destroyed, dissolved, and reduced to nothing. And they are pleased when
they hear it said of a dying person, that he goes away or departs,
and such other words as intimate death to be the soul’s remove and not
destruction. And they sometimes speak thus: