LIFE AND WRITINGS OF PLINY.

Vices to which it is doomed to be subject. Man's liability to disease is, to him, a blemish in the economy of nature—"Life," he says, "this gift of nature, however long it may be, is but too uncertain and too frail; even to him to whom it is most largely granted, it is dealt out with a sparing and niggardly hand, if we only think of eternity." As we cannot have life on our own terms, he does not think it worthy of our acceptance, and more than once expresses his opinion that the sooner we are rid of it, the better. Sudden death he looks upon as a remarkable phenomenon, but at the same time, as the greatest blessing that can be granted to us1: See Book 7, Chapter 51.2: "The greatest happiness of life." Book 7, Chapter 54.; and when he mentions cases of resuscitation, it is only to indulge in the querulous complaint that, "exposed as he is by his birth to the caprices of fortune, man can be certain of nothing; no, not even his own death3: Book 7, Chapter 53.." Though anything but4: He loses no opportunity of criticizing luxury and sensuality. an Epicurean, in the modern acceptation of the word, he seems to have held some, at least, of the tenets of Epicurus in reference to the immortality of the soul. Whether he supposed that the soul, at the moment of death, is resolved into its previous atoms or constituent elements, he does not inform us; but he states it as his belief that after death the soul has no more existence than it had before birth; that all notions of immortality are a mere delusion; and that the very idea of a future existence is ridiculous5: The question as to a future existence he calls "Manium ambages," or "quiddities about the Manes (spirits of the departed)." Book 7, Chapter 56., and spoils that greatest6: See Book 7, Chapter 55. blessing of nature—death. He certainly speaks of ghosts or apparitions seen after death, but these he probably looked upon as exceptional cases: indeed, he believed7: We have already seen that in his earlier years he was warned in a vision by Drusus to write the history of the wars in Germany; there is a vast difference between paying attention to the suggestion of a dream, and believing in the immortality of the soul or the existence of disembodied spirits. in the stories which he quotes, of which we have no proofs, or rather, indeed, presumptive proof to the contrary; for some of them he calls "magna fabulositas," or "most fabulous tales."

In relation to human inventions, it is worthy of remark...