XVlll 
LIEE AIS^D WETTIKaS Or PLI^fY. 
vices to wliich 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 u.pon 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. c. 51. 
2 " Summa vitse felicitas." B. vii. c. 54. ^ yH. c. 53. 
^ He loses no opportunity of inveighing against luxury and sensuality. 
^ The question as to a future existence he calls "Manium ambages," 
" quiddities about the Manes." B. vii. c. 56. ^ See B. vii. c. 53. 
We have already seen that in his earher years he was warned in a 
vision by Drusus to write the history of the wars in Germany ; but 
there is a vast difference between paying attention to the suggestions of 
a dream, and beheving in the immortaUty of the soul, or the existence of 
disembodied spirits. ^ B. vii. c. 53. 
