The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations Part 19

_M._ To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a good.

_A._ I do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it, for even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove that death is no evil: but I will not interrupt you, I would rather hear a continued discourse.

_M._ What, if I should ask you a question, would you not answer?

_A._ That would look like pride; but I would rather you should not ask but where necessity requires.

IX. _M._ I will comply with your wishes, and explain as well as I can, what you require; but not with any idea that, like the Pythian Apollo, what I say must needs be certain and indisputable; but as a mere man, endeavouring to arrive at probabilities by conjecture, for I have no ground to proceed further on than probability. Those men may call their statements indisputable who a.s.sert that what they say can be perceived by the senses, and who proclaim themselves philosophers by profession.

_A._ Do as you please, we are ready to hear you.

_M._ The first thing, then, is to inquire what death, which seems to be so well understood, really is; for some imagine death to be the departure of the soul from the body; others think that there is no such departure, but that soul and body perish together, and that, the soul is extinguished with the body. Of those who think that the soul does depart from the body, some believe in its immediate dissolution; others fancy that it continues to exist for a time; and others believe that it lasts for ever. There is great dispute even what the soul is, where it is, and whence it is derived: with some, the heart itself (cor) seems to be the soul, hence the expressions, _excordes_, _vecordes_, _concordes_; and that prudent Nasica, who was twice consul, was called Corculus, _i.e._ wise-heart; and aelius s.e.xtus is described as _Egregie cordatus h.o.m.o, catus aeliu' s.e.xtus_-that great _wise-hearted_ man, sage aelius. Empedocles imagines the blood, which is suffused over the heart, to be the soul; to others, a certain part of the brain seems to be the throne of the soul; others neither allow the heart itself, nor any portion of the brain, to be the soul; but think either that the heart is the seat and abode of the soul; or else that the brain is so. Some would have the soul, or spirit, to be the _anima_, as our schools generally agree; and indeed the name signifies as much, for we use the expressions _animam agere_, to live; _animam efflare_, to expire; _animosi_, men of spirit; _bene animati_, men of right feeling; _exanimi sententia_, according to our real opinion-and the very word _animus_ is derived from _anima_. Again, the soul seems to Zeno the Stoic to be fire.

X. But what I have said as to the heart, the blood, the brain, air, or fire being the soul, are common opinions: the others are only entertained by individuals; and indeed there were many amongst the ancients who held singular opinions on this subject, of whom the latest was Aristoxenus, a man who was both a musician and a philosopher; he maintained a certain straining of the body, like what is called harmony in music, to be the soul; and believed that, from the figure and nature of the whole body, various motions are excited, as sounds are from an instrument. He adhered steadily to his system, and yet he said something, the nature of which, whatever it was, had been detailed and explained a great while before by Plato. Xenocrates denied that the soul had any figure, or anything like a body; but said it was a number, the power of which, as Pythagoras had fancied, some ages before, was the greatest in nature: his master, Plato, imagined a three-fold soul; a dominant portion of which, that is to say, reason, he had lodged in the head, as in a tower; and the other two parts, namely, anger and desire, he made subservient to this one, and allotted them distinct abodes, placing anger in the breast, and desire under the praecordia. But Dicaearchus, in that discourse of some learned disputants, held at Corinth, which he details to us in three books; in the first book introduces many speakers; and in the other two he introduces a certain Pherecrates, an old man of Phthia, who, as he said, was descended from Deucalion; a.s.serting, that there is in fact no such thing at all as a soul; but that it is a name, without a meaning; and that it is idle to use the expression, "animals," or "animated beings;" that neither men nor beasts have minds or souls; but that all that power, by which we act or perceive, is equally infused into every living creature, and is inseparable from the body, for if it were not, it would be nothing; nor is there anything whatever really existing except body, which is a single and simple thing, so fas.h.i.+oned, as to live and have its sensations in consequence of the regulations of nature. Aristotle, a man superior to all others, both in genius and industry (I always except Plato), after having embraced these four known sorts of principles, from which all things deduce their origin, imagines that there is a certain fifth nature, from whence comes the soul; for to think, to foresee, to learn, to teach, to invent anything, and many other attributes of the same kind, such as, to remember, to love, to hate, to desire, to fear, to be pleased or displeased; these, and others like them, exist, he thinks, in none of those first four kinds: on such account he adds a fifth kind, which has no name, and so by a new name he calls the soul ??de????a, as if it were a certain continued and perpetual motion.

XI. If I have not forgotten anything unintentionally, these are the princ.i.p.al opinions concerning the soul. I have omitted Democritus, a very great man indeed, but one who deduces the soul from the fortuitous concourse of small, light, and round substances; for, if you believe men of his school, there is nothing which a crowd of atoms cannot effect.

Which of these opinions is true, some G.o.d must determine. It is an important question for us, which has the most appearance of truth. Shall we, then, prefer determining between them, or shall we return to our subject?

_A._ I could wish both, if possible; but it is difficult to mix them; therefore, if without a discussion of them we can get rid of the fears of death, let us proceed to do so; but if this is not to be done without explaining the question about souls, let us have that now, and the other at another time.

_M._ I take that plan to be the best, which I perceive you are inclined to; for reason will demonstrate that, whichever of the opinions which I have stated is true, it must follow, then, that death cannot be an evil; or that it must rather be something desirable, for if either the heart, or the blood, or the brain, is the soul, then certainly the soul, being corporeal, must perish with the rest of the body; if it is air, it will perhaps be dissolved; if it is fire, it will be extinguished; if it is Aristoxenus's harmony, it will be put out of tune. What shall I say of Dicaearchus, who denies that there is any soul? In all these opinions, there is nothing to affect any one after death; for all feeling is lost with life, and where there is no sensation, nothing can interfere to affect us. The opinions of others do indeed bring us hope; if it is any pleasure to you to think that souls, after they leave the body, may go to heaven as to a permanent home.

_A._ I have great pleasure in that thought, and it is what I most desire; and even if it should not be so, I should still be very willing to believe it.

_M._ What occasion have you, then, for my a.s.sistance? am I superior to Plato in eloquence? Turn over carefully his book that treats of the soul, you will have there all that you can want.

_A._ I have, indeed, done that, and often; but, I know not how it comes to pa.s.s, I agree with it whilst I am reading it, but when I have laid down the book, and begin to reflect with myself on the immortality of the soul, all that agreement vanishes.

_M._ How comes that? do you admit this, that souls either exist after death, or else that they also perish at the moment of death?

_A._ I agree to that. And if they do exist, I admit that they are happy; but if they perish, I cannot suppose them to be unhappy, because, in fact, they have no existence at all. You drove me to that concession but just now.

_M._ How, then, can you, or why do you, a.s.sert that you think that death is an evil, when it either makes us happy, in the case of the soul continuing to exist, or, at all events, not unhappy, in the case of our becoming dest.i.tute of all sensation.

XII. _A._ Explain, therefore, if it is not troublesome to you, first, if you can, that souls do exist after death; secondly, should you fail in that, (and it is a very difficult thing to establish,) that death is free from all evil; for I am not without my fears that this itself is an evil; I do not mean the immediate deprivation of sense, but the fact that we shall hereafter suffer deprivation.

_M._ I have the best authority in support of the opinion you desire to have established, which ought, and generally has, great weight in all cases. And first, I have all antiquity on that side, which the more near it is to its origin and divine descent, the more clearly, perhaps, on that account did it discern the truth in these matters. This very doctrine, then, was adopted by all those ancients, whom Ennius calls in the Sabine tongue, Casci, namely, that in death there was a sensation, and that, when men departed this life, they were not so entirely destroyed as to perish absolutely. And this may appear from many other circ.u.mstances, and especially from the pontifical rites and funeral obsequies, which men of the greatest genius would not have been so solicitous about, and would not have guarded from any injury by such severe laws, but from a firm persuasion that death was not so entire a destruction as wholly to abolish and destroy everything, but rather a kind of transmigration, as it were, and change of life, which was, in the case of ill.u.s.trious men and women, usually a guide to heaven, while in that of others, it was still confined to the earth, but in such a manner as still to exist. From this, and the sentiments of the Romans,

In heaven Romulus with G.o.ds now lives;

as Ennius saith, agreeing with the common belief; hence, too Hercules is considered so great and propitious a G.o.d amongst the Greeks, and from them he was introduced among us, and his wors.h.i.+p has extended even to the very ocean itself. This is how it was that Bacchus was deified, the offspring of Semele; and from the same ill.u.s.trious fame we receive Castor and Pollux as G.o.ds, who are reported not only to have helped the Romans to victory in their battles, but to have been the messengers of their success. What shall we say of Ino, the daughter of Cadmus? is she not called Leucothea by the Greeks, and Matuta by us? Nay more; is not the whole of heaven (not to dwell on particulars) almost filled with the offspring of men?

Should I attempt to search into antiquity, and produce from thence what the Greek writers have a.s.serted, it would appear that even those who are called their princ.i.p.al G.o.ds, were taken from among men up into heaven.

XIII. Examine the sepulchres of those which are shown in Greece; recollect, for you have been initiated, what lessons are taught in the mysteries; then will you perceive how extensive this doctrine is. But they who were not acquainted with natural philosophy, (for it did not begin to be in vogue till many years later,) had no higher belief than what natural reason could give them; they were not acquainted with the principles and causes of things; they were often induced by certain visions, and those generally in the night, to think that those men, who had departed from this life, were still alive. And this may further be brought as an irrefragable argument for us to believe that there are G.o.ds,-that there never was any nation so barbarous, nor any people in the world so savage, as to be without some notion of G.o.ds: many have wrong notions of the G.o.ds, for that is the nature and ordinary consequence of bad customs, yet all allow that there is a certain divine nature and energy. Nor does this proceed from the conversation of men, or the agreement of philosophers; it is not an opinion established by inst.i.tutions or by laws; but, no doubt, in every case the consent of all nations is to be looked on as a law of nature. Who is there, then, that does not lament the loss of his friends, princ.i.p.ally from imagining them deprived of the conveniences of life? Take away this opinion, and you remove with it all grief; for no one is afflicted merely on account of a loss sustained by himself. Perhaps we may be sorry, and grieve a little; but that bitter lamentation, and those mournful tears, have their origin in our apprehensions that he whom we loved is deprived of all the advantages of life, and is sensible of his loss. And we are led to this opinion by nature, without any arguments or any instruction.

XIV. But the greatest proof of all is, that nature herself gives a silent judgment in favour of the immortality of the soul, inasmuch as all are anxious, and that to a great degree, about the things which concern futurity;-

One plants what future ages shall enjoy,

as Statius saith in his Synephebi. What is his object in doing so, except that he is interested in posterity? Shall the industrious husbandman, then, plant trees the fruit of which he shall never see? and shall not the great man found laws, inst.i.tutions, and a republic? What does the procreation of children imply-and our care to continue our names-and our adoptions-and our scrupulous exactness in drawing up wills-and the inscriptions on monuments, and panegyrics, but that our thoughts run on futurity? There is no doubt but a judgment may be formed of nature in general, from looking at each nature in its most perfect specimens; and what is a more perfect specimen of a man, than those are who look on themselves as born for the a.s.sistance, the protection, and the preservation of others? Hercules has gone to heaven; he never would have gone thither, had he not, whilst amongst men, made that road for himself.

These things are of old date, and have, besides, the sanction of universal religion.

XV. What will you say? what do you imagine that so many and such great men of our republic, who have sacrificed their lives for its good, expected?

Do you believe that they thought that their names should not continue beyond their lives? None ever encountered death for their country, but under a firm persuasion of immortality! Themistocles might have lived at his ease; so might Epaminondas; and, not to look abroad and amongst the ancients for instances, so might I myself. But, somehow or other, there clings to our minds a certain presage of future ages; and this both exists most firmly and appears most clearly, in men of the loftiest genius and greatest souls. Take away this, and who would be so mad as to spend his life amidst toils and dangers? I speak of those in power. What are the poet's views but to be enn.o.bled after death? What else is the object of these lines-

Behold old Ennius here, who erst Thy fathers' great exploits rehea.r.s.ed?

He is challenging the reward of glory from those men whose ancestors he himself had enn.o.bled by his poetry. And in the same spirit he says in another pa.s.sage-

Let none with tears my funeral grace, for I Claim from my works an immortality.

Why do I mention poets? the very mechanics are desirous of fame after death. Why did Phidias include a likeness of himself in the s.h.i.+eld of Minerva, when he was not allowed to inscribe his name on it? What do our philosophers think on the subject? do not they put their names to those very books which they write on the contempt of glory? If, then, universal consent is the voice of nature, and if it is the general opinion everywhere, that those who have quitted this life are still interested in something; we also must subscribe to that opinion. And if we think that men of the greatest abilities and virtue see most clearly into the power of nature, because they themselves are her most perfect work; it is very probable that, as every great man is especially anxious to benefit posterity, there is something of which he himself will be sensible after death.

XVI. But as we are led by nature to think there are G.o.ds, and as we discover, by reason, of what description they are, so, by the consent of all nations, we are induced to believe that our souls survive; but where their habitation is, and of what character they eventually are, must be learned from reason. The want of any certain reason on which to argue has given rise to the idea of the shades below, and to those fears, which you seem, not without reason, to despise: for as our bodies fall to the ground, and are covered with earth (_humus_), from whence we derive the expression to be interred (_humari_), that has occasioned men to imagine that the dead continue, during the remainder of their existence, under ground; which opinion has drawn after it many errors, which the poets have increased; for the theatre, being frequented by a large crowd, among which are women and children, is wont to be greatly affected on hearing such pompous verses as these-

Lo! here I am, who scarce could gain this place, Through stony mountains and a dreary waste; Through cliffs, whose sharpen'd stones tremendous hung, Where dreadful darkness spread itself around:

and the error prevailed so much, though indeed at present it seems to me to be removed, that although men knew that the bodies of the dead had been burned, yet they conceived such things to be done in the infernal regions as could not be executed or imagined without a body; for they could not conceive how disembodied souls could exist; and, therefore, they looked out for some shape or figure. This was the origin of all that account of the dead in Homer. This was the idea that caused my friend Appius to frame his Necromancy; and this is how there got about that idea of the lake of Avernus, in my neighbourhood,-

From whence the souls of undistinguish'd shape, Clad in thick shade, rush from the open gate Of Acheron, vain phantoms of the dead.

And they must needs have these appearances speak, which is not possible without a tongue, and a palate, and jaws, and without the help of lungs and sides, and without some shape or figure; for they could see nothing by their mind alone, they referred all to their eyes. To withdraw the mind from sensual objects, and abstract our thoughts from what we are accustomed to, is an attribute of great genius: I am persuaded, indeed, that there were many such men in former ages: but Pherecydes(57) the Syrian is the first on record who said that the souls of men were immortal; and he was a philosopher of great antiquity in the reign of my namesake Tullus. His disciple Pythagoras greatly confirmed this opinion, who came into Italy in the reign of Tarquin the Proud: and all that country which is called Great Greece was occupied by his school, and he himself was held in high honour, and had the greatest authority: and the Pythagorean sect was for many ages after in such great credit, that all learning was believed to be confined to that name.

XVII. But I return to the ancients. They scarcely ever gave any reason for their opinion but what could be explained by numbers or definitions. It is reported of Plato, that he came into Italy to make himself acquainted with the Pythagoreans; and that when there, amongst others, he made an acquaintance with Archytas(58) and Timaeus,(59) and learned from them all the tenets of the Pythagoreans; and that he not only was of the same opinion with Pythagoras concerning the immortality of the soul, but that he also brought reasons in support of it; which, if you have nothing to say against it, I will pa.s.s over, and say no more at present about all this hope of immortality.

_A._ What, will you leave me when you have raised my expectations so high?

I had rather, so help me Hercules! be mistaken with Plato, whom I know how much you esteem, and whom I admire myself from what you say of him, than be in the right with those others.

_M._ I commend you; for, indeed, I could myself willingly be mistaken in his company. Do we, then, doubt, as we do in other cases, (though I think here is very little room for doubt in this case, for the mathematicians prove the facts to us,) that the earth is placed in the midst of the world, being as it were a sort of point, which they call a ???t???, surrounded by the whole heavens; and that such is the nature of the four principles, which are the generating causes of all things, that they have equally divided amongst them the const.i.tuents of all bodies; moreover that earthy and humid bodies are carried at equal angles, by their own weight and ponderosity, into the earth and sea; that the other two parts consist one of fire and the other of air? As the two former are carried by their gravity and weight into the middle region of the world; so these, on the other hand, ascend by right lines into the celestial regions; either because, owing to their intrinsic nature, they are always endeavouring to reach the highest place, or else because lighter bodies are naturally repelled by heavier; and as this is notoriously the case, it must evidently follow, that souls, when once they have departed from the body, whether they are animal, (by which term I mean capable of breathing,) or of the nature of fire, must mount upwards: but if the soul is some number, as some people a.s.sert, speaking with more subtlety than clearness, or if it is that fifth nature, for which it would be more correct to say that we have not given a name to, than that we do not correctly understand it-still it is too pure and perfect, not to go to a great distance from the earth. Something of this sort, then, we must believe the soul to be, that we may not commit the folly of thinking that so active a principle lies immerged in the heart or brain; or, as Empedocles would have it, in the blood.

XVIII. We will pa.s.s over Dicaearchus,(60) with his contemporary and fellow-disciple Aristoxenus,(61) both indeed men of learning. One of them seems never even to have been affected with grief, as he could not perceive that he had a soul; while the other is so pleased with his musical compositions, that he endeavours to show an a.n.a.logy betwixt them and souls. Now, we may understand harmony to arise from the intervals of sounds, whose various compositions occasion many harmonies; but I do not see how a disposition of members, and the figure of a body without a soul, can occasion harmony; he had better, learned as he is, leave these speculations to his master Aristotle, and follow his own trade, as a musician; good advice is given him in that Greek proverb,-

Apply your talents where you best are skill'd.