1. The Soul Is Material and Mortal
Like everything else, the human soul is composed of atoms and void, and does not survive eternally. It cannot survive outside the body, so it is born with, lives with, and dies with the body.
(1) Next one must observe, by reference to our sensations and feelings (for these will provide the most secure conviction), that the soul is a body of fine texture, distributed throughout the whole aggregate, most closely resembling breath with a certain admixture of heat, and in some respects resembling the one, in some respects the other. (2) But there is also a part which differs greatly from even these in fineness of texture, and because of this is more closely in harmony with the rest of the aggregate. (3) All this is made evident by the powers of the soul, its feelings, its ease of movement, its thought processes, and those things whose removal brings death to us. (4) Next one must observe that the soul is mainly responsible for sensation. (5) Yet it would not have acquired this, had it not been somehow enclosed by the rest of the aggregate. (6) But the rest of the aggregate, while providing this cause for the soul, itself acquires a share of this property from the soul; yet it does not acquire all that the soul acquires. (7) Hence on the departure of the soul it does not have sensation. For it did not have this power in itself, but provided for another thing - the thing which had come into being along with it - the conditions for it to have it; and this thing, through the power now perfected in it as a result of motion, was at once producing for itself the property of sensation, and giving it back to the aggregate as well, by virtue of closeness and reciprocity of motion, as I have said. (tr. Long & Sedley)
(1) Hence, whenever the whole aggregate is broken up, the soul is dispersed and no longer has the same powers nor performs its movements, and consequently does not possess sensation either. (2) For it is not possible to conceive of it as sentient if it is not in this organism and is not performing these movements, when its containers and surroundings are not of the kind which now contain it and in which it performs these movements. (tr. Long & Sedley)
(1) I say therefore that the mind and the spirit are interconnected and constitute a single nature, but what I might call the head and dominant principle throughout the whole body is the will or mind, which we call mens and animus. And it is firmly seated in the region of the breast. (2) For here throb fear and terror, around these parts dwell soothing joys; here then is the seat of will and mind. (3) The rest of the soul, dispersed throughout the body, obeys the mind and moves at its will and inclination. (4) The mind by itself has understanding for itself and joy for itself even when nothing moves either the soul or the body. (5) And just as when an injury attacks our head or eye, we are not tortured over our whole body, so the mind sometimes suffers pain by itself or grows strong with joy when all the rest of the soul throughout the limbs and frame is stirred by nothing novel. (6) But when the mind is excited by a more vehement fear, we see the whole soul feel in unison through the limbs; sweat and pallor then break out all over the body, the tongue falters, the voice dies away, the eyes grow dark, the ears ring, the limbs give way; in short we often see men collapse from terror of mind. Hence anyone can easily perceive from this that the soul is interconnected with the mind, and when it has been struck by the force of the mind it immediately pushes and strikes the body. (tr. Long & Sedley)
My next point is that the mind and the spirit are firmly interlinked and constitute a single nature, but that the deliberative element which we call the mind is, as it were, the chief, and holds sway throughout the body. It is firmly located in the central part of the chest. For that is where fear and dread leap up, and where joys caress us: therefore it is where the mind is. The remaining part of the spirit, which is distributed throughout the body, obeys the mind and moves at its beck and call. The mind by itself possesses its own understanding and its own joys while nothing is affecting either the spirit or the body. And just as, when our head or eye is hurt by an attack of pain, the agony is not shared by our whole body, so too the mind sometimes itself suffers pain or waxes with joy while the rest of the spirit throughout the limbs and frame is receiving no new stimulus. But when the mind is affected by a more powerful fear we see the whole spirit throughout the limbs share its sensation, with sweat and pallor arising over the whole body, the tongue crippled and the voice] choked, the eyes darkened, the ears buzzing, the limbs buckling - indeed, we often see men collapse through the mind's terror. From this anyone can easily tell that the spirit is interlinked with the mind: when it is impelled by the mind's power it immediately hurls the body forward with its own impact. This same reasoning proves the nature of the mind and spirit to be corporeal. For when it is seen to hurl the limbs forward, to snatch the body out of sleep, to alter the face, and to govern and steer the entire man - and we see that non e of these is possible without touch, nor touch without body -- you must surely admit that the mind and spirit are constituted with a corporeal nature. Besides, you can see that the mind is affected jointly with the body and shares our bodily sensations. If the frightful force of a spear, when it penetrates to wrench apart the bones and sinews, fails to strike at life itself, there nevertheless follows relaxation and an agreeable descent to the ground, and on the ground a turmoil which develops in the mind and at times a half-hearted will as if to rise. Hence the nature of the mind must be corporeal, since it suffers under the impact of corporeal spears. (tr. Long & Sedley)
(1) Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal and can feel when separated from our body, we must, I think, suppose it equipped with five senses. Nor in any other way can we picture to ourselves the souls wandering in the lower world of Acheron. (2) Therefore painters and bygone generations of writers have presented souls thus equipped with senses. (3) But eyes and nose and hand cannot exist for the soul apart from body, nor again tongue apart from body, nor can ears exist or perceive apart by themselves. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Epicurus [said that the soul is] a blend consisting of four things, of which one kind is fire-like, one air-like, one wind-like, while the fourth is something which lacks a name. This last he made the one responsible for sensation. Th e wind, he said produces movement in us, the air produces rest, the hot one produces the evident heat of the body, and the unnamed one produces sensation in us. For sensation is found in none of the named elements. (tr. Long & Sedley)
The primary particles of the elements so interpenetrate each other in their motions that no one element can be distinguished and no capacity spatially separated, but they exist as multiple powers of a single body. Just as, familiarly, in any animal flesh there is odor and a certain heat and flavor, and yet between them these go to make up a single mass of body, so too heat, air and the unseen force of wind when mixed form a single nature, along with that mobile power which transmits the beginning of motion from itself to them, the origin of sense-bearing motions through the flesh. For this substance lies deeply concealed, deeper than anything else in our body. It is, moreover, the very spirit of the entire spirit. Just as the power of the mind and that of the spirit, interspersed in our limbs and entire body, lie hidden because compounded out of tiny particles few and far between, so too this nameless power, made of minute particles, lies hidden, and is moreover the very spirit of the entire spirit and holds sway throughout the body. In a similar way wind, air, and heat must so interact in their mixture throughout the limbs, with one deeper than the others and one more prominent, as to be seen to constitute between them something unitary, lest in separation from each other the heat, the wind and the power of air destroy and dissipate sensation. The mind also has that kind of heat which it takes on when it boils with anger and the eyes shine with a fiercer flame; it has plenty of cold wind, the companion of fear, which excites fright in the limbs and rouses the frame; and it has that state of the still air which is found in a tranquil chest and in a calm face. But there is more heat in those with fierce hearts and angry minds which easily boil over in anger. A prime example is the lion, which regularly bursts its chest with roaring and groaning and cannot contain the billows of rage in its chest. But the cold mind of stags is more windy, and quicker to rouse through their flesh those chilly gusts which set the limbs in trembling motion. The nature of cattle, on the other hand, is characterized more by calm air. Neither does ignition by the smouldering brand of anger ever over-excite it and cloud it with blind darkness, nor is it transfixed and numbed by the icy shafts of fear. It lies midway between stags and fierce lions. Likewise the human race. Even though education may produce individuals equally well turned out, it still leaves those original traces of each mind's nature. And we must not suppose that faults can be completely eradicated, so that one man will not plunge too hastily into bitter anger, another not be assailed too readily by fear, or the third type not be over-indulgent in tolerating certain things. There are many further respects in which men's various natures and characteristic behaviours must differ, but I cannot now set out their hidden causes, nor can I find enough names for all the shapes of primary particles from which this variety springs. But there is one thing which I see I can state in this matter: so slight are the traces of our natures which reason cannot expel from us, that nothing stands in the way of our leading a life worthy of the gods. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Moreover we perceive that the mind is born along with the body, and along with the body grows up, and together with it becomes old. For as children carry about with them a body that is tender and soft, so a weak intelligence goes with it. Then when their powers have matured to robust strength, wisdom also is greater and the power of the mind stronger. Afterwards, when the body is now shattered by the strong force of time, and the frame has drooped with blunted powers, the intellect halts, the tongue wanders, the intelligence wavers; all fail and are wanting at the same time. It naturally follows therefore that the whole nature of the mind is dissolved, like smoke, into the high air; since we see it is born with the body and grows up with it, and as I have showed becomes weary and worn out with age at the same time. (Bailey, adapted)
Furthermore, if the mind is immortal and enters into the body at birth, why is it that we cannot remember the time before, and retain no traces of earlier things? For if the power of the mind has been so greatly changed that all recollection of former things is lost, that I deem is not far removed from death. Therefore you must admit that the soul that was before has perished, and that which is now has now been formed. If however the soul's power is wont to be introduced into us when our body is already formed, and when we are being born...it does not seem in any way likely that the soul can be thought to be of long standing if it is outside the body during the time of life; for it naturally follows that what has been touched with disease will break. Therefore the nature of the soul is not immortal. (Bailey, adapted)
Now I shall tell you - and you mark what I say - how it comes about that we can take steps forward when we want to, how we have the power to move our limbs, and what it is that habitually thrusts forward this great bulk that is our body, First, let me say, images of walking impinge on our mind and strike it, as I explained earlier. It is after that that volition occurs. For no one ever embarks up on any action before the mind first previews what it wishes to do, and whatever it is that it previews there exists an image of that thing. So when the mind suits itself to want to go forwards, it immediately strikes all the power of the spirit distributed all over the body throughout the limbs and frame; it is easily done, because the spirit is firmly interlinked with it. Then the spirit in turn strikes the body, and thus gradually the whole bulk is pushed forward and moved. (tr. Long & Sedley)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation (Bailey renders the Latin simulacra as "idols," not "images," which is why earlier searches for this page came up empty).]
[Above: Munro's translation, quoted in text. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
Therefore, again and again I say, when the enveloping body has been all broken up and the vital airs have been forced out, you must admit that the senses of the mind and the soul are dissolved, since the cause of destruction is one and inseparable for both body and soul. (Munro)
[Above: Munro's translation, quoted in text. Below: the same passage in Bailey's translation.]
Wherefore, again and again I say, we must believe souls to be neither without a birth nor exempted from the law of death; for we must not believe that they could have been so completely united with our bodies, if they found their way into them from without, nor since they are so closely interwoven with them, does it appear that they can get out unharmed and unloose themselves unscathed from all the sinews and bones and joints. (Munro)
But if by chance the soul is rather to be held immortal for this reason, because it is fortified and protected from things fatal to life, or because things harmful to its life come not at all, or because such as come in some way depart defeated before we can feel what harm they do us. For besides that it falls sick along with the diseases of the body, there comes to it that which often torments it about things that are to be, and makes it ill at ease with fear, and wears it out with care; and when its evil deeds are past and gone, yet sin brings remorse. There is too the peculiar frenzy of the mind and forgetfulness of the past, yes, and it is plunged into the dark waters of lethargy. (Bailey)
[Sextus is reporting the opposing view that souls survive the body; the phrase in quotation marks is Epicurus's.]
Also, they persist as they are in themselves, and are not (as Epicurus said) "dispersed like smoke when released from their bodies." (Bury)
2. Death Is Nothing To Us - Aspects Of Death And Dying
Epicurus held that when we die we cease to exist entirely. The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms and void, and at death it dissolves just as the body does -- dispersing into the universe without any remaining center of sensation or consciousness. There is no immortal soul, no afterlife, no judgment, no heaven or hell. The "state of being dead" is therefore a state of absolute nothingness for us -- not suffering, not darkness, not sleep -- but simply non-existence, in which there is no subject remaining to experience anything at all.
Since death is the privation of sensation, and good and evil consist entirely in sensation, death can be neither good nor evil for the one who has died. The fear of death is therefore irrational -- it is the fear of something that, when present, involves no subject to experience it. This does not mean that we should ignore our mortality or fail to make the most of the time we have. On the contrary, understanding that life is finite and that death involves no suffering frees us to invest fully in living well right now, without wasting the present in dread of what is coming.
Accustom yourself to the belief that death is nothing to us. For all good and evil lie in sensation, whereas death is the absence of sensation. Hence a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding infinite time, bur by ridding us of the desire for immortality. For there is nothing fearful in living for one who genuinely grasps that there is nothing fearful in not living. Therefore he speaks idly who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful in anticipation. For if something causes no distress when present, it is fruitless to be pained by the expectation of it. Therefore that most frightful of evils, death, is nothing to us, seeing that when we exist death is not present, and when death is present we do not exist. Thus it is nothing to either the living or the dead, seeing that the former do not have it and the latter no longer exist. The many sometimes shun death as the greatest of evils, but at other times choose it as a release from life's evils. But the wise man neither deprecates living nor fears not living. For he neither finds living irksome nor thinks not living an evil. But just as he chooses the pleasantest food, not simply the greater quantity, so too he enjoys the pleasantest time, not the longest. He who advises the young man to live well but the old man to die well is naive, not only because life is something to be welcomeda, but also because to practise living well and to practise dying well are one and the same. Much worse, however, is he who says 'It's a fine thing never to be born. Or, once born, to pass through the gates of Hades with the utmost speed. If he believes what he says, why does he not take his departure from life? He has every opportunity to do so, supposing that his resolve were serious. If he is joking, his words are idle and will be greeted with incredulity. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Death is nothing to us. For what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Infinite time and finite time contain equal pleasure, if one measures the limits of pleasure by reasoning. (tr. Long & Sedley)
The flesh places the limits of pleasure at infinity, and needs an infinite time to bring it about. But the intellect, by making a rational calculation of the end and the limit which govern the flesh, and by dispelling the fears about eternity, brings about the complete life, so that we no longer need the infinite time. But neither does it shun pleasure, nor even when circumstances bring about our departure from life does it suppose, as it perishes, that it has in any way fallen short of the best life. (tr. Long & Sedley)
He who knows the limits of life knows how easy it is to obtain that which removes pain caused by want and that which makes the whole of life complete. He therefore has no need for competitive involvements. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Against other things it is possible to obtain security. But when it comes to death we human beings all live in an unwalled city. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Therefore death is nothing to us, of no concern whatsoever, once it is appreciated that the mind has a mortal nature. Just as in the past we had no sensation of discomfort when the Carthaginians were converging to attack, so too, when we will no longer exist following the severing of the soul and body, from whose conjunction we are constituted, you can take it that nothing at all will be able to affect us and to stir our sensation -- not if the earth collapses into sea, and sea into sky. Even if the nature of our mind and the power of our spirit do have sensation after they are torn from our bodies, that is still nothing to us, who are constituted by the conjunction of body and spirit. Or supposing that after our death the passage of time will bring our matter back together and reconstitute it in its present arrangement, and the light of life will be restored to us, even that eventuality would be of no concern to us, once our self-recollection was interrupted. Nor do ourselves which existed in the past concern us now: we feel no anguish about them. For when you look back at the entire past span of measureless time, and then reflect how various are the motions of matter, you could easily believe that the same primary particles of which we now consist have often in the past been arranged in the same order as now. Yet our minds cannot remember it. For in between there has been an interruption of life, and all the motions have been at random, without sensation. For if there is going to be unhappiness and suffering, the person must also himself exist at that same time, for the evil to be able to befall him. Since death robs him of this, preventing the existence of the person for the evils to be heaped upon, you can tell that there is nothing for us to fear in death, that he who does not exist cannot be unhappy, and that when immortal death snatches away a mortal life it is no different from never having been born. So when you see a man resent the prospect of his body's being buried and rotting after death, or being destroyed by fire or by the jaws of wild beasts, you m a y be sure that his words do not ring true, and that there lurks in his heart some hidden sting, however much he may deny the belief that he will have any sensation in death. For he does not, I think, grant either the substance or the ground of what he professes. Instead of completely stripping himself of life, he is unconsciously making some bit of himself survive. For when anybody in life imagines that in death the birds and beasts will rip up his body, he pities himself. For he does not distinguish himself from it or adequately detach himself from the abandoned corpse: he identifies himself with it, and by remaining present he infects it with his own sensation. He thus comes to resent the fact that he was born mortal, and does not see that in the reality of death be will have no other self left alive, able to mour n his passing, and to stand by, suffering the agony of his fallen body being ripped or burned. 'No more for you the welcome of a joyful home and a good wife. No more will your children run to snatch the first kiss, and move your heart with unspoken delight. No more will you be able to protect the success of your affairs and your dependants. Unhappy man', they say, 'unhappily robbed by a single hateful day of all those rewards of life.' What they fail to add is: ' Nor does any yearning for those things remain in you, ' If they properly saw this with their mind, and followed it up in their words, they would unshackle themselves of great mental anguish and fear. 'You, at least, in death's sleep, will be ever more free of all pain and suffering. But we have stood viewing your ashes before us on the grim pyre, weeping inconsolably. Our grief will be everlasting. No day will come to purge our hearts of it.' Of the person who says this, we should ask what is so sad about a return to sleep and rest, that someone should be able to pine in everlasting grief. (tr. Long & Sedley)
(1) Why not rather, mortal, make an end of life and labor in tranquility? For all things that you could want have been devised and discovered to please you, yet the same things always recur. If your body is not yet withered with age nor your limbs worn and decayed, yet all things remain the same, even if you should go on to outlast all generations, or even more, if you should never die. (2) What answer can we make except that nature brings a true case against us and sets out in her pleading a true indictment? (tr. Long & Sedley)
No one is sent down to the black pit of Tartarus. Their matter is needed so that future generations can grow. But these will all follow you too once their life is played out. No less than you, they have fallen and will fall. So ceaselessly does one thing arise from another. All have a lease on life, but none has the freehold. Undoubtedly it is in our life that all those things exist which are fabled to be in the depths of hell. No unhappy Tantalus quakes at the huge rock hanging over him in mid-air, numbed by an empty terror. Rather, it is in life that an empty fear of the gods hounds mortals: each is afraid of the fall which his lot may bring him. Nor is it true that Tityos lies in hell with birds tunnelling into him, or that they can really find an everlasting food supply to forage beneath his great chest. However huge were the spread of his body, even were his sprawling limbs to cover not just nine acres but the whole earth, he would still not be able to endure everlasting pain nor to go on forever providing food from his own body. But we have our own Tityos here -- the man who lies lovesick, torn apart by winged creatures and gnawed at by nervous agony, or rent by cares through some other passion. Sisyphus too exists before our eyes in real life. He is the man who thirsts to run for the rods and cruel axes of public office, and who always returns beaten and dejected. For to pursue the empty and unattainable goal of power, and in its pursuit to endure unremittingly hard toil, that is the struggle of pushing uphill a stone which, in spite of all, at the very peak rolls back and hurtles downward to the level ground below, Then again, to be always indulging an ungrateful mind, and never to satisfy it with its fill of good things, as the seasons of the year do for us when they come round bringing their fruits and a variety of delights, despite which we are never satisfied with our fill of life's benefits - that, I believe, is the fable of the girls in the bloom of youth gathering water into a pitcher full of holes which it is impossible to fill. As for Cerberus, the Furies, and the pitch black of Tartarus belching dreadful heat from its jaws, they do not, and indeed cannot, exist anywhere. Wh at there is in real life is the fear of punishment for crimes - as prominent a fear as the crimes are prominent. And there is atonement for wrongdoing: prison, the dreadful hurling down from the rock, lashes, executioners, the rack, tar, metal plates, firebrands. Even when these are absent, still the mind, in the anxiety brought on by awareness of its deeds, goads itself and scorches itself with whips. And all the time it is failing to see what limit to evils there can be, and what the end to punishment is. It shudders at these things all the more for fear that in death they may get worse. Here on earth the life of the foolish becomes hell. (tr. Long & Sedley)
Nor do we, or can we, by prolonging life subtract anything from the time of death, so as perhaps to shorten our period of extinction! Hence you may live to see out as many centuries as you like: no less will that everlasting death await you. No shorter will be the period of nonexistence for one who has ended his life from today than for one who perished many months or years ago. (tr. Long & Sedley)
We are born once and there can be no second birth; for all eternity we shall no longer be. But you, who are not master of tomorrow, are putting off your happiness. Life is worn away in procrastination, and each of us dies without allowing himself leisure. (Bailey)
Some men throughout their lives gather together the means of life, for they do not see that the draught swallowed by all of us at birth is a draught of death. (Bailey)
Death is nothing to us and concerns us not one jot, since the nature of mind is found to be mortal; and just as in time past we felt no ill when the Poeni came from all sides to do battle, when all things trembled with war's alarming uproar, and men doubted under which empire the whole world was to fall by land and sea, so when we shall be no more, when there shall have been a separation of body and soul out of which we are each put together as one being, then nothing at all will be able to happen to us who will not then exist, or stir our feeling; no, not if earth shall be mingled with sea, and sea with sky. (Bailey)
Now there is naught to fear in death, for one who does not exist cannot be wretched. When death has come, when mortal life is done, the man himself no longer is; and therefore naught that may follow can be suffered by him, or kindle his desire. For he who is no more has naught to suffer. So if one shall weep and grieve that after death he shall moulder away, or be consumed by flames, or be caught in the jaws of wild beasts, he does not ring true; for his heart is still a covert sting though he denies that he has any feeling. He does not, I think, grant what he professes, nor the grounds thereof; nor does he remove and cast himself wholly out of life, but all unwitting makes something of himself survive. For whoever while alive imagines that birds and beasts will mangle his body after death, he pities himself. He does not separate himself from that prostrate form, he imagines himself standing there, and infects it with his own feeling. Hence it is that he is indignant that he was born mortal, and does not see that in true death there will be no other self alive, who could lament that he was dead, and stand there bewailing that his own body lay there mangled or burning. (Bailey, adapted)
[Above: Long & Sedley excerpt. Below: the same letter (to Idomeneus) in Bailey's translation.]
Here is the letter to Idomeneus which he (Epicurus) wrote on his deathbed: 'I wrote this to you on that blessed day of my life which was also the last. Strangury and dysentery had set in, with all the extreme intensity of which they are capable. But the joy in my soul at the memory of our past discussions was enough to counterbalance all this. I ask you, as befits your lifelong companionship with me and with philosophy: take care of the children of Metrodorus. ' (tr. Long & Sedley)
This too men often do, when they are lying at the board, and hold their cups in their hands, and shade their faces with garlands: they say from the heart, 'Brief is this enjoyment for us puny men: soon it will be past, nor ever thereafter will it be ours to call it back.' Much less then should we think that death is to us, if there can be less than what we see to be nothing; for at our dying there follows a greater turmoil and scattering abroad of matter, nor does any one wake and rise again, whom the chill breach of life has once overtaken. (Bailey)
Death is nothing to us; for our soul, as soon as we reach the immovable and firm boundaries, which are the limit of natural life, is dissolved.
[Note: the inscription itself survives only as a fragmentary few words here ("...and [firm]..., which are [the limit] of a natural [life]..."); the fuller quote above appears to be a completed/reconstructed rendering rather than Smith's own printed translation of what survives. The surviving fragment is genuine and matches; the sentence as a whole is broader than what the stone itself preserves.]
Some, too, believe death itself to be dreadful and horrible, others do not. Thus Euripides says: "Who knows if life be but the state of death, / And death be counted life in realms below?" And Epicurus declares: "Death is nothing to us; for what is dissolved is senseless, and what is senseless is nothing to us." They also declare that, inasmuch as we are compounded of soul and body, and death is a dissolution of soul and body, when we exist death does not exist (for we are not being dissolved), and when death exists we do not exist, for through the cessation of the compound of soul and body we too cease to exist. (Bury)