129. We need not trouble ourselves with his notion of the smallness, smoothness, and roundness of the atoms which make up the mind, qualities which he arrives at from the rapidity with which the mind originates and works out a suggestion, contrasting here the mobility of water with the viscosity of honey. Nor his proof (by the non-diminution of the weight and dimensions of the body at death), that the whole mass of the mind must be exceedingly small. But we may quote, in two of its many forms, his constant reiteration of the unreasonableness of the fear of death, and his philosophic mode of overcoming it:— ‘Some wear themselves to death for the sake of statues and a name. And often to such a degree, through dread of death, does hate of life and of the sight of daylight seize upon mortals, that they consider self-murder with a sorrowing heart, quite forgetting that this fear is the source of their cares (this fear which urges men to every sin), prompts this one to put all shame to rout, another to burst asunder the bonds of friendship; and, in fine, to overturn duty from its very base, since often ere now men have betrayed country and dear parents in seeking to shun the Acherusian quarters. For, even as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylight fear at times things not a whit more to be dreaded than what children shudder at in the dark, and fancy sure to be. This terror, therefore, and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of nature.’ Book III. 78. ‘Now no more shall thy house admit thee with glad welcome, nor a most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be the first to snatch kisses, and touch thy heart with silent joy. No more mayest thou be prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard to thine own. One disastrous day has taken from thee, luckless man, in luckless wise, all the many prizes of life. This do men say; but add not thereto: “And now no longer does any craving for these things beset thee withal.” For if they could rightly perceive this in thought, and follow up the thought in words, they would release themselves from great distress and apprehension of mind. Thou, even as now thou art, sunk in the sleep of death, shalt continue so to be in all time to come, freed from all distressing pains; but we, with a sorrow that would not be sated, wept for thee, when close by thou didst turn to an ashen hue on thy appalling funeral pile, and no length of days shall pluck from our hearts our ever-enduring grief. This question, therefore, should be asked of this speaker, what there is in it so passing bitter, if it come in the end to sleep and rest, that any one should pine in never-ending sorrow.’ Book III. 894.