t you do say, then?

_A._ I say, for instance, that Marcus Crassus is miserable in being
deprived of such great riches as his by death; that Cn. Pompey is
miserable in being taken from such glory and honor; and, in short, that
all are miserable who are deprived of this light of life.

_M._ You have returned to the same point, for to be miserable implies
an existence; but you just now denied that the dead had any existence:
if, then, they have not, they can be nothing; and if so, they are not
even miserable.

_A._ Perhaps I do not express what I mean, for I look upon this very
circumstance, not to exist after having existed, to be very miserable.

_M._ What, more so than not to have existed at all? Therefore, those
who are not yet born are miserable because they are not; and we
ourselves, if we are to be miserable after death, were miserable before
we were born: but I do not remember that I was miserable before I was
born; and I should be glad to know, if your memory is better, what you
recollect of yourself before you were born.

VII. _A._ You are pleasant: as if I had said that those men are
miserable who are not born, and not that they are so who are dead.

_M._ You say, then, that they are so?

_A._ Yes; I say that because they no longer exist after having existed
they are miserable.

_M._ You do not perceive that you are asserting contradictions; for
what is a greater contradiction, than that that should be not only
miserable, but should have any existence at all, which does not exist?
When you go out at the Capene gate and see the tombs of the Calatini,
the Scipios, Servilii, and Metelli, do you look on them as miserable?

_A._ Because you press me with a word, henceforward I will not say they
are miserable absolutely, but miserable on this account, because they
have no existence.

_M._ You do not say, then, "M. Crassus is miserable," but only
"Miserable M. Crassus."

_A._ Exactly so.

_M._ As if it did not follow that whatever you speak of in that manner
either is or is not. Are you not acquainted with the first principles
of logic? For this is the first thing they lay down, Whatever is
asserted (for that is the best way that occurs to me, at the moment, of
rendering the Greek term [Greek: axioma]; if I can think of a more
accurate expression hereafter, I will use it), is asserted as being
either true or false. When, therefore, you say, "Miserable M. Crassus,"
you either say this, "M. Crassus is mis