r 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 they 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 SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}, 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 miserable," so that some judgment may be made whether it is
true or false, or you say nothing at all.

_A._ Well, then, I now own that the dead are not miserable, since you have
drawn from me a concession, that they who do not exist at all, cannot be
miserable. What then? we that are alive, are we not wretched, seeing we
must die? for what is there agreeable in life, when we must night and day
reflect that, at some time or other, we must die?

VIII. _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