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| Chapter IV.
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Chapter IV.
Even now, as the matter refers to thy opinion on a
point the more closely belonging to thee, in so far as it bears on thy
personal well-being, we maintain that after life has passed away thou
still remainest in existence, and lookest forward to a day of judgment,
and according to thy deserts art assigned to misery or bliss, in either
way of it for ever; that, to be capable of this, thy former substance
must needs return to thee, the matter and the memory of the very same
human being: for neither good nor evil couldst thou feel if thou wert
not endowed again with that sensitive bodily organization, and there
would be no grounds for judgment without the presentation of the very
person to whom the sufferings of judgment were due. That Christian
view, though much nobler than the Pythagorean, as it does not transfer
thee into beasts; though more complete than the Platonic, since it
endows thee again with a body; though more worthy of honour than the
Epicurean, as it preserves thee from annihilation,—yet, because
of the name connected with it, it is held to be nothing but vanity and
folly, and, as it is called, a mere presumption. But we are not ashamed
of ourselves if our presumption is found to have thy support.
Well, in the first place, when thou speakest of one who is dead, thou
sayest of him, “Poor man”—poor, surely, not because
he has been taken from the good of life, but because he has been given
over to punishment and condemnation. But at another time thou speakest
of the dead as free from trouble; thou professest to think life a
burden, and death a blessing. Thou art wont, too, to speak of the dead
as in repose,1483
| 1483 [This whole passage is
useful as a commentary on classic authors who use these poetical
expressions. Cœlo Musa beat (Hor. Ode viii. B. 4.) but the
real feeling comes out in such expressions as one finds in
Horace’s odes to Sextius, (B. i. Ode 4.), or to Postumus, B. ii.
Od. 14.] | when, returning to
their graves beyond the city gates1484
| 1484 [The tombs, by
the roadside, of which the traveller still sees specimens, used to be
scenes of debauchery when the dead were honoured in this way.
Now, the funeral honours (See De Corona, cap. iii.) which
Christians substituted for these were Eucharistic alms and oblations:
thanking God for their holy lives and perpetuating relations with them
in the Communion of Saints.] | with food and
dainties, thou art wont to present offerings to thyself rather than to
them; or when, coming from the graves again, thou art staggering under
the effects of wine. But I want thy sober opinion. Thou callest the
dead poor when thou speakest thine own thoughts, when thou art at a
distance from them. For at their feast, where in a sense they are
present and recline along with thee, it would never do to cast reproach
upon their lot. Thou canst not but adulate those for whose sake thou
art feasting it so sumptuously. Dost thou then speak of him as
poor who feels not? How happens it that thou cursest, as one
capable of suffering from thy curse, the man whose memory comes back on
thee with the sting in it of some old injury? It is thine
imprecation that “the earth may lie heavy on him,” and that
there may be trouble “to his ashes in the realm of the
dead.” In like manner, in thy kindly feeling to him to whom thou
art indebted for favours, thou entreatest “repose to his bones
and ashes,” and thy desire is that among the dead he may
“have pleasant rest.” If thou hast no power of suffering
after death, if no feeling remains,—if, in a word, severance from
the body is the annihilation of thee, what makes thee lie against
thyself, as if thou couldst suffer in another state? Nay, why dost thou
fear death at all? There is nothing after death to be feared, if there
is nothing to be felt. For though it may be said that death is dreadful
not for anything it threatens afterwards, but because it deprives us of
the good of life; yet, on the other hand, as it puts an end to
life’s discomforts, which are far more numerous, death’s
terrors are mitigated by a gain that more than outweighs the
loss. And there is no occasion to be troubled about a loss of
good things, which is amply made up for by so great a blessing as
relief from every trouble. There is nothing dreadful in that which
delivers from all that is to be dreaded. If thou shrinkest from giving
up life because thy experience of it has been sweet, at any rate there
is no need to be in any alarm about death if thou hast no knowledge
that it is evil. Thy dread of it is the proof that thou art aware of
its evil. Thou wouldst
never think it evil—thou wouldst have no fear of it at
all—if thou wert not sure that after it there is something to
make it evil, and so a thing of terror.1485
| 1485 [Butler, Analogy, Part
I. chap. i.] |
Let us leave unnoted at this time that natural way of fearing death. It
is a poor thing for any one to fear what is inevitable. I take up the
other side, and argue on the ground of a joyful hope beyond our term of
earthly life; for desire of posthumous fame is with almost every class
an inborn thing.1486
| 1486 [Horace, Book III. Ode
30.] | I have not time to
speak of the Curtii, and the Reguli, or the brave men of Greece, who
afford us innumerable cases of death despised for after renown. Who at
this day is without the desire that he may be often remembered when he
is dead? Who does not give all endeavour to preserve his name by works
of literature, or by the simple glory of his virtues, or by the
splendour even of his tomb? How is it the nature of the soul to
have these posthumous ambitions and with such amazing effort to prepare
the things it can only use after decease? It would care nothing about
the future, if the future were quite unknown to it. But perhaps
thou thinkest thyself surer, after thy exit from the body, of
continuing still to feel, than of any future resurrection, which is a
doctrine laid at our door as one of our presumptuous suppositions. But
it is also the doctrine of the soul; for if any one inquires about a
person lately dead as though he were alive, it occurs at once to say,
“He has gone.” He is expected to return,
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