s will make
their progress with more rapidity; for the spirit which has always been
fettered by the bonds of the body, even when it is disengaged, advances
more slowly, just as those do who have worn actual fetters for many
years: but when we have arrived at this emancipation from the bonds of
the body, then indeed we shall begin to live, for this present life is
really death, which I could say a good deal in lamentation for if I
chose.

_A._ You have lamented it sufficiently in your book on Consolation; and
when I read that, there is nothing which I desire more than to leave
these things; but that desire is increased a great deal by what I have
just heard.

_M._ The time will come, and that soon, and with equal certainty,
whether you hang back or press forward; for time flies. But death is so
far from being an evil, as it lately appeared to you, that I am
inclined to suspect, not that there is no other thing which is an evil
to man, but rather that there is nothing else which is a real good to
him; if, at least, it is true that we become thereby either Gods
ourselves, or companions of the Gods. However, this is not of so much
consequence, as there are some of us here who will not allow this. But
I will not leave off discussing this point till I have convinced you
that death can, upon no consideration whatever, be an evil.

_A._ How can it, after what I now know?

_M._ Do you ask how it can? There are crowds of arguers who contradict
this; and those not only Epicureans, whom I regard very little, but,
somehow or other, almost every man of letters; and, above all, my
favorite Dicaearchus is very strenuous in opposing the immortality of
the soul: for he has written three books, which are entitled Lesbiacs,
because the discourse was held at Mitylene, in which he seeks to prove
that souls are mortal. The Stoics, on the other hand, allow us as long
a time for enjoyment as the life of a raven; they allow the soul to
exist a great while, but are against its eternity.

XXXII. Are you willing to hear then why, even allowing this, death
cannot be an evil.

_A._ As you please; but no one shall drive me from my belief in
mortality.

_M._ I commend you, indeed, for that; though we should not be too
confident in our belief of anything; for we are frequently disturbed by
some subtle conclusion. We give way and change our opinions even in
things that are more evident than this; for in this there certainly is
some obscurity. T