itself. He that desires of a man to be made an angel, does nothing for
himself; he would be never the better for it; for, being no more, who
shall rejoice or be sensible of this benefit for him.

"Debet enim, misere cui forti, aegreque futurum est,
Ipse quoque esse in eo turn tempore, cum male possit
Accidere."

["For he to whom misery and pain are to be in the future, must
himself then exist, when these ills befall him."
--Idem, ibid., 874.]

Security, indolence, impassability, the privation of the evils of this
life, which we pretend to purchase at the price of dying, are of no
manner of advantage to us: that man evades war to very little purpose who
can have no fruition of peace; and as little to the purpose does he avoid
trouble who cannot enjoy repose.

Amongst those of the first of these two opinions, there has been great
debate, what occasions are sufficient to justify the meditation of
self-murder, which they call "A reasonable exit."--[ Diogenes Laertius,
Life of Zeno.]--For though they say that men must often die for trivial
causes, seeing those that detain us in life are of no very great weight,
yet there is to be some limit. There are fantastic and senseless humours
that have prompted not only individual men, but whole nations to destroy
themselves, of which I have elsewhere given some examples; and we further
read of the Milesian virgins, that by a frantic compact they hanged
themselves one after another till the magistrate took order in it,
enacting that the bodies of such as should be found so hanged should be
drawn by the same halter stark naked through the city. When Therykion