’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh, life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that we want.
Tennyson (The Two Voices).
It is, perhaps, true that no one at any time longs for death; and that our desire is for “more life and fuller.” But men have for various reasons longed to die, though they may not have longed for death. There are those to whom the remainder of life will be one torment of pain to themselves and a continuous mental distress to their friends; and there have been men of firm religious belief who desired to pass into a nobler life beyond the grave. Again, Richard Hodgson definitely assured me in 1897 that he wished to die. He was absolutely satisfied with the evidence of survival after death, which he had had in connection with the Society for Psychical Research; and his desire was to “pass over” and be with the friends with whom for years he had been in communication. Hodgson was incapable of saying anything insincere.
Remember what Simonides said—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.
Plutarch (Morals).
Not the truth of which a man is or believes himself to be possessed, but the earnest efforts which he has made to attain truth, make the worth of the man. For it is not through the possession of, but through the search for truth, that he develops those powers in which alone consists his ever-growing perfection. Possession makes the mind stagnant, indolent, proud.