ay's continuance and uncertain, and born for no considerable purpose.
For insensibility, dissolution, and the conceit that what hath no sense
is nothing to us, do not at all abate the fear of death, but rather help
to confirm it; for this very thing is it that nature most dreads,--

But may you all return to mould and wet,
(Ibid. vii. 99.)

to wit, the dissolution of the soul into what is without knowledge or
sense. Now, while Epicurus would have this to be a separation into
atoms and void, he doth but further cut off all hope of immortality; to
compass which (I can scarce refrain from saying) all men and women would
be well contented to be worried by Cerberus, and to carry water into
the tub full of holes, so they might but continue in being and not be
exterminated. Though (as I said before) there are not very many that
stand in fear of these things, they being but the tenets of old women
and the fabulous stories of mothers and nurses,--and even they that do
fear them yet believe that certain rites of initiation and purgation
will relieve them, by which after they are cleansed they shall play and
dance in hell forever, in company with those that have the privilege of
a bright light, clear air, and the use of speech,--yet to be deprived of
living disturbs all both young and old. We

Impatient love the light that shines on earth,
(Euripides, "Hippolytus," 193)

as Euripides saith. Nor are we easy or without regret when we hear
this:--

Him speaking thus th' eternal brightness leaves,
Where night the wearied steeds of day receives.

And therefore it is very plain that with the belief of immortality they
take away the sweetest and greatest hopes the vulgar sort have. And what
shall we then think they take away from the good and those that have led
pious and just lives, who expect no ill after dying, but on the contrary
most glorious and divine things? For, in the first place, athletes
are not used to receive the garland before they have performed their
exercises, but after they have contested and proved victorious; in like
manner is it with those that are persuaded that good men have the prize
of their conquests after this life is ended; it is marvellous to think
to what a pitch of grandeur their virtue raises their spirits upon the
contemplation of those hopes, among the which this is one, that they
shall one day see those men that are now insolent by reason of their
wealth and power