The same strength of heart and mind characterises that passage of sustained and impassioned feeling, in which Lucretius encounters the thought of eternal death. The vast spiritual difference between the Roman poet and the Greek philosopher is apparent when we contrast the cold, unsympathetic language of the epistle to Menoeceus with the fervent and profoundly human tones of the third book of the poem of Lucretius. Epicurus escapes from the fear of death through a placid indifference of feeling, an easy contentment with the comforts of this life, a sense of relief in getting rid of 'the longing for immortality' ([Greek: ton tes athanasias pothon]). Lucretius, while realising the full pathos and solemnity of the thought of death, preaches submission to the inexorable decree of Nature with a stern consistency and a proud fortitude combating the suggestions of human weakness. The whole of the third book is devoted to this part of his subject, and the argument of the fourth is to a great extent supplementary to that of the third book. The physical doctrine enunciated and illustrated in the first half of the third book is the materiality of the soul and its indissoluble connexion with the body. The practical consequence of this doctrine, viz. that death is nothing to us, is there enforced in a long passage[12] of sustained power and solemnity of feeling. First, we are made to realise the entire unconsciousness in death throughout all eternity. 'As it was before we were born, so shall it be hereafter. As we felt no trouble in the past at the clash of conflict between Roman and Carthaginian, when all the world shook with alarm, so nothing can touch us or move us then-- Non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo[13]. It is but the trick of our fancy which suggests the thought of any kind of suffering after all consciousness has ceased-- Nec radicitus e vita se tollit et eicit Sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse[14]. Men feel that the sadness of death lies in the separation from wife, and children, and home; in the extinction which a single day has brought to all the blessings and the gains of a lifetime. But they forget that along with these blessings is extinguished all desire and longing for them. So, too, men "spice their fair banquets with the dust of death." They say, "our joy is but for a season; it will soon be past, nor ever again be recalled,"--as if forsooth any want or any desire can haunt that sleep from which there is no awaking-- Nec quisquam expergitus exstat, Frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta[15].