Plutarch Consolatio ad Apollonium 15

[15] If, however, death is really a complete destruction and dissolution of both body and soul (for this was the third of Socrates’ conjectures), even so it is not an evil. For, according to him, there ensues a sort of insensibility and a liberation from all pain and anxiety. For just as no good can attach to us in such a state, so also can no evil; for just as the good, from its nature, can exist only in the case of that which is and has substantiality, so it is also with the evil. But in the case of that which is not, but has been removed from the sphere of being, neither of them can have any real existence. Now those who have died return to the same state in which they were before birth; therefore, as nothing was either good or evil for us before birth, even so will it be with us after death. And just as all events before our lifetime were nothing to us, even so will all events subsequent to our lifetime be nothing to us. For in reality since For the condition after the end of life is the same as that before birth. But do you imagine that there is a difference between not being born at all, and being born and then passing away? Surely not, unless you assume also that there is a difference in a house or a garment of ours after its destruction, as compared with the time when it had not yet been fashioned. But if there is no difference in these cases, it is evident that there is no difference in the case of death, either, as compared with the condition before birth. Arcesilaus puts the matter neatly: This that we call an evil, death, is the only one of the supposed evils which, when present, has never caused anybody any pain, but causes pain when it is not present but merely expected. As a matter of fact, many people, because of their utter fatuity and their false opinion regarding death, die in their effort to keep from dying. ³ Excellently does Epicharmus ⁴ put it: once more Cresphontes in some play of Euripides, ⁵ speaking of Heracles, says: This you might rewrite and say, Noble also is the Spartan song ⁶ : and again: Excellently does Euripides ⁸ say of those who patiently endure long illnesses: And Merope ⁹ stirs the theatres by expressing manly sentiments when she speaks the following words: With this the following might be appropriately combined: and their wealth perished with their bodies.

[15] But lastly, if death be the entire dissipation of soul and body (which was the third part of Socrates’s comparison), even then it cannot be an evil. For this would produce a privation of sense, and consequently a complete freedom from all solicitude and care; and if no good, so no evil would befall us. For good and evil alike must by nature inhere in that which has existence and essence; but to that which is nothing, and wholly abolished out of the nature of things, neither of the two can belong. Therefore, when men die, they return to the same condition they were in before they were born. For as, before we came into the world, we were neither sensible of good nor afflicted with evil, so it will be when we leave it; and as those things which preceded our birth did not concern us, so neither will those things which are subsequent to our death:—

For it is the same state of existence after death as it was before we were born. Unless perhaps you will make a difference between having no being at all and the utter extinction of it, after the same manner that you make a distinction between an house and a garment after they are ruined and worn out, and at the time before the one was built and the other made. And if in this case there is no difference, it is plain that there is none between the state before we were born and that after we are dead. It is elegantly said by Arcesilaus, that death, which is called an evil, hath this peculiarly distinct from all that are thought so, that when it is present it gives us no disturbance, but when remote and in expectation only, it is then that it afflicts us. And indeed many out of the poorness of their spirit, having entertained most injurious opinions of it, have died even to prevent death. Epicharmus hath said excellently to this purpose: It was united, it is now dissolved; it returns back whence it came,—earth to earth, the spirit to regions above. What in all this is grievous Nothing at all. But that which Cresphontes in Euripides saith of Hercules,— I would have changed into these words,— This Laconic too is very noble:— Others before and after us will be, Whose age we’re not permitted e’er to see. And again:— But Euripides hath spoken incomparably well of those who labor under daily indispositions:— But Merope moved the passion of the theatre with these masculine expressions:— And we may not incongruously add these:— Their riches have perished with their bodies.