We must add, that while Epicurus was right in regarding the beliefs entertained about a future life as a source of painful anxiety, he was only justified in this opinion by the deeper truth, which he ignored, that they are simply the natural dread of death under another form.178 The most appalling pictures of damnation would, taken by themselves, probably add but little to human misery. The alarming effect even of earthly punishments is found to depend on their certainty much more93 than on their severity; and the certainty of suffering what nobody has ever experienced must be small indeed. Besides, the class most interested in enlarging on the dark side of immortality are also interested in showing that its dangers may be bought off at a comparatively trifling cost. What Epicurus said about the inexorable fate of the physicists might here be turned against himself. He removed terrors which there was a possibility of exorcising, and substituted a prospect of annihilation whence there was no escape.179There goes the chute! Dick was equally thrilled.
Director
III.The lights were flaring at No. 1 Lytton Avenue, as they seemed to flare almost day and night. The red carpet crossed the pavement; inside the banks of flowers nodded their brilliant heads, there was a rustle of silken drapery and a ripple of laughter from the drawing-room. It was all typical of a life of pleasure.