With ceaseless groaning, howling, and complaint.
Now let Epicurus, if he can, put himself in the place of that man—
Whose veins and entrails thus are racked with pain
And horrid agony, while the serpent's bite
Spreads its black venom through his shuddering frame.
Let Epicurus become Philoctetes. If his pain is sharp it is short. But in fact he has been lying in his cave for ten years. If it lasts long it is light, for it grants him intervals of relaxation. In the first place it does not do so often; and in the second place what sort of relaxation is it when the memory of past agony is still fresh, and the fear of further agony coming and impending is constantly tormenting him. Let him die, says he. Perhaps that would be the best thing for him; but then what becomes of the argument, that the wise man has always more pleasure than pain? For if that be the case I would have you think whether you are not recommending him a crime, when you advise him to die. Say to him rather, that it is a disgraceful thing for a man to allow his spirit to be crushed and broken by pain, that it is shameful to yield to it. For as for your maxim, if it is violent it is short, if it lasts long it is slight, that is mere empty verbiage. The only real way to mitigate pain is by the application of virtue, of magnanimity, of patience, of courage.
XXX. Listen, that I may not make too wide a digression, to the words of Epicurus when dying; and take notice how [pg 168] inconsistent his conduct is with his language. “Epicurus to Hermarchus greeting. I write this letter,” says he, “while passing a happy day, which is also the last day of my life. And the pains of my bladder and bowels are so intense that nothing can be added to them which can make them greater.” Here is a man miserable, if pain is the greatest possible evil. It cannot possibly be denied. However, let us see how he proceeds. “But still I have to balance this a joy in my mind, which I derive from the recollection of my philosophical principles and discoveries. But do you, as becomes the goodwill which from your youth upwards you have constantly discovered for me and for philosophy, protect the children of Metrodorus.” After reading this, I do not consider the death of Epaminondas or Leonidas preferable to his. One of whom defeated the Lacedæmonians at Mantinea,[39] and finding that he had been rendered insensible by a mortal wound, when he first came to himself, asked whether his shield was safe? When his weeping friends had answered him that it was, he then asked whether the enemy was defeated? And when he received to this question also the answer which he wished, he then ordered the spear which was sticking in him to be pulled out. And so, losing quantities of blood, he died in the hour of joy and victory.
But Leonidas, the king of the Lacedæmonians, put himself and those three hundred men, whom he had led from Sparta, in the way of the enemy of Thermopylæ,[40] when the alternative was a base flight, or a glorious death. The deaths of generals are glorious, but philosophers usually die in their beds. But still Epicurus here mentions what, when dying, he considered great credit to himself. “I have,” says he, “a joy to counterbalance these pains.” I recognise in these words, O Epicurus, the sentiments of a philosopher, but still you forgot what you ought to have said. For, in the first place, if those things be true, in the recollection of which you say you rejoice, that is to say, if your writings and discoveries are true, then you cannot rejoice. For you have no pleasure here which you can refer to the body. But you have constantly asserted that no one ever feels joy or pain except with reference to his body. “I rejoice,” says he, “in the past.” In what that is past? If you mean such past things as refer to [pg 169] the body, then I see that you are counterbalancing your agonies with your reason, and not with your recollection of pleasures which you have felt in the body. But if you are referring to your mind, then your denial of there being any joy of the mind which cannot be referred to some pleasure of the body, must be false. Why, then, do you recommend the children of Metrodorus to Hermarchus? In that admirable exercise of duty, in that excellent display of your good faith, for that is how I look upon it, what is there that you refer to the body?
XXXI. You may twist yourself about in every direction as you please, Torquatus, but you will not find in this excellent letter anything written by Epicurus which is in harmony and consistent with the rules he laid down. And so he is convicted by himself, and his writings are upset by his own virtue and goodness. For that recommendation of those children, that recollection of them, and affectionate friendship for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater evidence can we require that those things which are honourable and right are desirable of themselves for their own sake, than the sight of a dying man so anxious in the discharge of such important duties? But, as I think that letter deserving of all commendation of which I have just given you a literal translation, (although it was in no respect consistent with the general system of that philosopher,) so also I think that his will is inconsistent not only with the dignity of a philosopher, but even with his own sentiments. For he wrote often, and at great length, and sometimes with brevity and suitable language, in that book which I have just named, that death had nothing to do with us; for that whatever was dissolved was void of sensation, and whatever was void of sensation had nothing whatever to do with us. Even this might have been expressed better and more elegantly. For when he lays down the position that what has been dissolved is void of sensation, that is such an expression that it is not very plain what he means by the word dissolved. However, I understand what he really does mean. But still I ask why, when every sensation is extinguished [pg 170] by dissolution, that is to say, by death, and when there is nothing else whatever that has any connexion with us, he should still take such minute and diligent care to enjoin Amynomachus and Timocrates, his heirs, to furnish every year what in the opinion of Hermarchus shall be enough to keep his birthday in the month Gamelion, with all proper solemnity. And also, shall every month, on the twentieth day of the month, supply money enough to furnish a banquet for those men who have studied philosophy with him, in order that his memory, and that of Metrodorus, may be duly honoured. Now I cannot deny that these injunctions are in keeping with the character of a thoroughly accomplished and amiable man; but still I utterly deny that it is inconsistent with the wisdom of a philosopher, especially of a natural philosopher, which is the character he claims for himself, to think that there is such a day as the birthday of any one. What? Can any day which has once passed recur over again frequently. Most indubitably not; or can any day like it recur? Even that is impossible, unless it may happen after an interval of many thousand years, that there may be a return of all the stars at the same moment to the point from which they set out. There is, therefore, no such thing as anybody's birthday. But still it is considered that there is. As if I did not know that. But even if there be, is it to be regarded after a man's death? And is a man to give injunctions in his will that it shall be so, after he has told you all, as if with the voice of an oracle, that there is nothing which concerns us at all after death? These things are very inconsistent in a man who, in his mind, had travelled over innumerable worlds and boundless regions, which were destitute of all limits and boundaries. Did Democritus ever say such a thing as this? I will pass over every one else, and call him only as a witness whom Epicurus himself followed to the exclusion of others.
But if a day did deserve to be kept, which was it more fitting to observe, the day on which a man was born, or that on which he became wise? A man, you will say, could not have become wise unless he had been born. And, on the same principle, he could not if his grandmother had never been born. The whole business, Torquatus, is quite out of character for a learned man to wish to have the recollection [pg 171] of his name celebrated with banquets after his death. I say nothing of the way in which you keep these days, and to how many jokes from witty men you expose yourselves. There is no need of quarrelling. I only say that it would have been more becoming in you to keep Epicurus's birthday, than in him to leave injunctions in his will that it should be kept.