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: axiôma]; 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 can
not 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?