We here see how the perplexity in which men struggled, when they thought of psychic survival, gave earthly immortality a greater value in the eyes of the ancients. It was for many of them the essential point because it alone was certain. Not to fall into the abyss of forgetfulness seemed a sufficient reward for virtue. “Death is to be feared by those for whom everything is extinguished with their life, not by those whose renown cannot perish.”[55] That the commemoration of our merits may not cease when the short time of our passage here below has ended, but may be prolonged for as long as the sequence of future generations lasts—this is the deep desire which stimulates virtue and excites to effort. Cicero, when celebrating in the _Pro Archia_[56] the benefits wrought by the love of glory,—from which he was by no means exempt himself,—remarks shrewdly that even philosophers, who claim to show its vanity, are careful to place their names at the beginning of their books, thus showing the worth they attach to that which they exhort others to despise. Even more than today, the hope of a durable renown, the anxiety that their fellows should be busy about them even after their departure, the preoccupation lest their life should not be favourably judged by public opinion, haunted many men, secretly or avowedly dominated their thought and directed their actions. Even those who had played only a modest part in the world and had made themselves known only to a narrow circle, sought to render their memory unforgettable by building strong tombs for themselves along the great roads. Epitaphs often begin with the formula _Memoriae aeternae_, “To the eternal memory,” which we have inherited, although the idea it represents no longer has for most of us any but a very relative value. In antiquity it was first connected with the old belief in a communion of sentiments and an exchange of services between the deceased and their descendants who celebrated the funeral cult. When the firm belief in the power of the shades to feel and act ceased to exist, offerings were made with another intention: survivors liked to think that he who had gone had not entirely perished as long as his remembrance subsisted in the hearts of those who had cherished him and the minds of those who had learnt his praises. In some way, he rose from the grave in the image made of him by the successors of those who had known him. Epicurus himself stipulated in his will that the day of his birth should be commemorated every month,[57] and under the Roman Empire his disciples were still piously celebrating this recurring feast. Thus this deep instinct of preservation, which impels human beings to desire survival, showed itself even in him who contributed most of all to destroy faith in immortality. * * * * *