_M._ Thus: because, if there is no evil after death, then even death
itself can be none; for that which immediately succeeds that is a state
where you grant that there is no evil: so that even to be obliged to
die can be no evil, for that is only the being obliged to arrive at a
place where we allow that no evil is.

_A._ I beg you will be more explicit on this point, for these subtle
arguments force me sooner to admissions than to conviction. But what
are those more important things about which you say that you are
occupied?

_M._ To teach you, if I can, that death is not only no evil, but a
good.

_A._ I do not insist on that, but should be glad to hear you argue it,
for even though you should not prove your point, yet you will prove
that death is no evil. But I will not interrupt you; I would rather
hear a continued discourse.

_M._ What, if I should ask you a question, would you not answer?

_A._ That would look like pride; but I would rather you should not ask
but where necessity requires.

IX. _M._ I will comply with your wishes, and explain as well as I can
what you require; but not with any idea that, like the Pythian Apollo,
what I say must needs be certain and indisputable, but as a mere man,
endeavoring to arrive at probabilities by conjecture, for I have no
ground to proceed further on than probability. Those men may call their
statements indisputable who assert that what they say can be perceived