A philosophy which takes the brightness out of both lives, here and beyond, reducing both to a dull grey mist, can never be a spiritual force, and, if it prevailed, must result in the reversal of all ordinary judgments of value. This was a conclusion frankly accepted by the Stoics, and they carried it even to the extent of the abnegation of man’s most absorbing desire--the will to live. A man may even deny this: for adequate cause he may, nay, even _should_, take away his own life. In ordinary circumstances man should stand at his post till dismissed by his commander; he should play out the tragedy of life to the end as arranged by the dramatist: for just cause he may quit the stage before his part is played out. The reason is that between life and death there is nothing to choose; they are but successive stages of one and the same natural process. Marcus held that man may quit life if he finds it intolerable. True, he says that life ought not to be intolerable: it is our own fault if it is. But supposing that through weakness we cannot bear it, then “we may give it the slip”; and again because death is not the serious thing men imagine it to be: “What great matter is this business of dying? If the gods exist, you can suffer nothing, for they will do you no harm; and if they do not, or if they take no care of us mortals--why, then a world without gods or providence is not a world worth a man’s while to live in. But in truth the being of the gods and their concern in human affairs is beyond dispute.” If a man is of such a character or placed in such circumstances that for him a virtuous life is morally impossible, then Marcus says he has just cause for suicide, “for reason would rather that you were nothing than that you were a knave.” “You may live now, if you please, as you would choose to do if you were near to dying. But suppose people will not let you--why, then, give life the slip, but by no means make a misfortune of it. If the room smokes, I leave it, and there is an end; for why should one be concerned at the matter?”