have of those things clearly evidences that they only enter us by
composition; one person, peradventure, admits them in their true being,
but a thousand others give them a new and contrary being in them. We
hold death, poverty, and pain for our principal enemies; now, this death,
which some repute the most dreadful of all dreadful things, who does not
know that others call it the only secure harbour from the storms and
tempests of life, the sovereign good of nature, the sole support of
liberty, and the common and prompt remedy of all evils? And as the one
expect it with fear and trembling, the others support it with greater
ease than life. That one complains of its facility:

"Mors! utinam pavidos vitae subducere nolles.
Sed virtus to sola daret!"

["O death! wouldst that thou might spare the coward, but that
valour alone should pay thee tribute."--Lucan, iv. 580.]

Now, let us leave these boastful courages. Theodorus answered
Lysimachus, who threatened to kill him, "Thou wilt do a brave feat," said
he, "to attain the force of a cantharides." The majority of philosophers
are observed to have either purposely anticipated, or hastened and
assisted their own death. How many ordinary people do we see led to
execution, and that not to a simple death, but mixed with shame and
sometimes with grievous torments, appear with such assurance, whether
through firm courage or natural simplicity, that a man can discover no
change from their ordinary condition; settling their domestic affairs,
commending themselves to their friends, singing, preaching, and
addressing the people, nay, sometimes sallying into jests, and drinking
to their companions, quite as well as Socrates?