Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.8

M. Do you not, then, perceive how great is the evil from which you have delivered human nature?

 

A. By what means?

 

M. Because, if to die were miserable to the dead, to live would be a kind of infinite and eternal misery. Now, however, I see a goal, and when I have reached it, there is nothing more to be feared; but you seem to me to follow the opinion of Epicharmus, a man of some discernment, and sharp enough for a Sicilian.

 

A. What opinion? for I do not recollect it.

 

M. I will tell you if I can in Latin; for you know I am no more used to bring in Latin sentences in a Greek discourse than Greek in a Latin one.

 

A. And that is right enough. But what is that opinion of Epicharmus?

 

M.

I would not die, but yet

Am not concerned that I shall be dead.

 

A. I now recollect the Greek; but since you have obliged me to grant that the dead are not miserable, proceed to convince me that it is not miserable to be under a necessity of dying.

 

M. That is easy enough; but I have greater things in hand.

 

A. How comes that to be so easy? And what are those things of more consequence?

 

M. Thus: because, if there is no evil after death, then even death itself can be none; for that which immediately succeeds that is a state where you grant that there is no evil: so that even to be obliged to die can be no evil, for that is only the being obliged to arrive at a place where we allow that no evil is.

 

A. I beg you will be more explicit on this point, for these subtle arguments force me sooner to admissions than to conviction. But what are those more important things about which you say that you are occupied?

 

M. To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a good.

 

A. I do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it, for even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove that death is no evil. But I will not interrupt you; I would rather hear a continued discourse.

 

M. What, if I should ask you a question, would you not answer?

 

A. That would look like pride; but I would rather you should not ask but where necessity requires.

 

The key, with all such things that appear to be harmful, will be to look at them from a different angle, and learn how they can just as well become beneficial. It is our attitudes that will determine how well we live, and also how well we die. 

 

If death does turn out to be a state of nothingness, the complete removal of our existence and awareness, then there will be nothing evil within it for us to suffer. Instead of fretting about the pain that will come from being denied life, we can rather know that there will no longer be any pain at all. 

 

Strangely enough, death can be also viewed as a sort of final relief, an end that either rids us of our hardships or allows us to find satisfaction in the completion of a job well done. 

 

This need not be just some theoretical abstraction, as I have known people who were dying, and not necessarily at a ripe old age, who approached their passing with precisely such a sense of peaceful expectation. They felt that they had already faced their fair share of the struggle, or that they had already given all that they were able to give. There was no fear, only acceptance.

 

This can be achieved by changing our estimation, and not by lashing out at our circumstances. Yes, death will be as inevitable as taxes, and yet, unlike those taxes, there will no sting to the loss, because it will be moving on from the very possibility of any further loss. 

 

Epicharmus reflects the sense of ease with which we can choose to consider death. I may not prefer for it to happen, at least not right now, yet I know that it must happen, and I decide that I will not allow it to trouble me. Where I do not see any evil, I will not be weighed down by any worry. 

 

When Cicero suggests that death might even be a good thing, the “orthodox” Stoic, if there can even be such a thing, might object, since a general principle of the school is that death, like all circumstances, is neither good nor evil, but rather indifferent; it is virtue or vice that make things better or worse. Should I now toss the book out the window?

 

That will hardly be necessary. Let me explore in what sense Cicero means this, and where he might be going with this train of thought. Though some might find these dialogues sloppy in their structure, or too speculative in their direction, I, for one, appreciate how they approach the topic from many possible points of view. 

 

Again, Cicero certainly appeals to many Stoic truths, but his love of truth does not limit him to only what the Stoics would happen to believe. 

 

For the moment, it might be sufficient to say that there are times when a man can do good for himself through dying, just as there are times a man can do good for himself through living. He may not choose what comes to him, but he always has it within his power to choose how he will think of it, and what he will make of it. 

Written in 2/1996