deprived of such great riches as his by death; that Cn. Pompey is
miserable in being taken from such glory and honor; and, in short, that
all are miserable who are deprived of this light of life.

_M._ You have returned to the same point, for to be miserable implies
an existence; but you just now denied that the dead had any existence:
if, then, they have not, they can be nothing; and if so, they are not
even miserable.

_A._ Perhaps I do not express what I mean, for I look upon this very
circumstance, not to exist after having existed, to be very miserable.

_M._ What, more so than not to have existed at all? Therefore, those
who are not yet born are miserable because they are not; and we
ourselves, if we are to be miserable after death, were miserable before
we were born: but I do not remember 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 that should be not only
miserable, but should have any existence at all, which does not exist?