XVm LIFE AND WETTIlSrGS OF PLIITT. 



vices to which it is doomed to be subject. — Man's liability 

 to disease is with him a blemish in the economy of nature: 

 — " life," he says, "this gift of nature, however long it 

 may be, is but too uncertain and too frail ; to those 

 even to whom it is most largely granted, it is dealt out with 

 a sparing and niggardly hand, if we only think of eternity \" 

 As we cannot have life on our own terms, he does not think 

 it worthy of our acceptance, and more than once expresses 

 his opinion that the sooner we are rid of it the better. Sud- 

 den death he looks upon as a remarkable phsenomenon, but, at 

 the same time, as the greatest blessing that can be granted to 

 us^ : and when he mentions cases of resuscitation, it is only 

 to indulge in the querulous complaint, that, " exposed as he 

 is by his birth to the caprices of fortune, man can be certain 

 of nothing; no, not even his own death^." Though any- 

 thing but* an Epicurean, in the modern acceptation of the 

 word, he seems to have held some, at least, of the tenets 

 of Epicurus, in reference to the immortality of the soul. 

 Whether he supposed that the soul, at the moment of death, 

 is resolved into its previous atoms or constituent elements, 

 he does not inform us ; but he states it as his belief, that 

 after death the soul has no more existence than it had before 

 birth ; that all notions of immortality are a mere delusion^ ; 

 and that the very idea of a future existence is ridiculous, 

 and spoils that greatest^ blessing of nature — death. He 

 certainly speaks of ghosts or apparitions, seen after death ; 

 but these he probably looked upon as exceptional cases, if 

 indeed he believed'' in the stories which he quotes, of which 

 we have no proofs, or rather, indeed, presumptive proofs to 

 the contrary ; for some of them he calls " magna^ fabulose- 

 tas," "most fabulous tales." 



In relation to human inventions, it is worthy of remark, 



1 See B, vii. e. 51. 



2 " Summa vitae felicitas." B. vii, c. 54. ^ g, yji ^ 53^ 



^ He loses no opportunity of inveighing against luxuiy and sensuality. 



^ The question as to a future existence he calls " Manium ambages," 

 " quiddities about the Manes." B. vii. c. 56. ^ ggg ig yij c. 53. 



' We have already seen that in his earlier years he was warned in a 

 vision by Drusus to write the liistory of the wars in Germany ; but 

 there is a vast difference between paying attention to the suggestions of 

 a dream, and beheving in the immortality of the soid, or the existence of 

 disembodied spuits. ^ B. vii. c. 53. 



