When philosophy claimed to free souls from the superstitions of the past, it did not destroy the old conception of rest in the tomb but cleansed it from all material alloy. If it be doubtful whether anything of man survives, it is at least certain that death marks the abolition of the pains of this world and the end of its troubles. _Mors laborum et miseriarum quies_, is Cicero’s definition.[468] Death restores us to that state of tranquillity in which we were before our birth.[469] The “eternal home” which shelters the remains of man is the silent temple in which he no longer has anything to fear from nature or from his fellows. The Epicureans who made _ataraxia_ their ideal of life, the Stoics who found theirs in impassivity (ἀπάθεια), could see in the anaesthesia of death the supreme realisation of such absence of emotion and passion. The corpse lies as softly on its last bed as a man plunged in a deep and quiet sleep. The burial place is indeed often consecrated to _Somno aeterno_.[470] This idea is expressed in a thousand forms in literature and in epitaphs. A poor grammarian of Como, who doubtless had had little reason to congratulate himself on life, caused two lines of verse to be engraved on his tomb:[471] “I fled the miseries of sickness and the great ills of life; I am now delivered from all its pains and enjoy a peaceful calm.” On an African grave there are the following words: “After bearing a heavy burden and after manifold toils, he speaks no more, content with the silent dwelling in which he rests.”[472] We read elsewhere, “Life was a pain, death prepared me rest.”[473] The sentiment expressed by these inscriptions and many more like them is no mere reflection of the teaching of philosophers who denied the future life: it is profoundly human. The melodious but melancholy apostrophe of Leconte de Lisle is well known: “Et toi, divine mort, ou tout rentre et s’efface, Accueille tes enfants dans ton sein étoilé; Affranchis nous du temps, du nombre et de l’espace Et rends nous le repos que la vie a troublé.” “O Death divine, at whose recall, Returneth all To fade in thy embrace, Gather thy children to thy bosom starred, Free us from time, from number and from space, And give us back the rest that life has marred.”[474] In the midst of all the tribulation of our tormented existence, to how many minds, even those which have the strongest religious conviction, have not the immobility and insensibility of those who are no more sometimes seemed like a deliverance? In antiquity also, this aspiration towards the moment when man will obtain remission of all his travail does not necessarily imply the belief that there is no hope beyond the cold sleep of the grave. This yearning mingles with faith in immortality and is transformed with it.