What! is there no occasion for grieving, I replied to her, when we see one who so lately lived and spoke becoming all of a sudden lifeless and motionless, with the sense of every bodily organ extinct, with no sight or hearing in operation, or any other faculty of apprehension that sense possesses; and if you apply fire or steel to him, even if you were to plunge a sword into the body, or cast it to the beasts of prey, or if you bury it beneath a mound, that dead man is alike unmoved at any treatment? Seeing, then, that this change is observed in all these ways, and that principle of life, whatever it might be, disappears all at once out of sight, as the flame of an extinguished lamp which burnt on it the moment before neither remains upon the wick nor passes to some other place, but completely disappears, how can such a change be borne without emotion by one who has no clear ground to rest upon? We hear the departure of the spirit, we see the shell that is left; but of the part that has been separated we are ignorant, both as to its nature, and as to the place whither it has fled; for neither earth, nor air, nor water, nor any other element can show as residing within itself this force that has left the body, at whose withdrawal a corpse only remains, ready for dissolution.

_Γ. Τί μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔστι λύπης ἄξιον, πρὸς αὐτὴν εἶπον ἐγὼ, ὅταν βλέπωμεν τὸν τέως ζῶντά τε καὶ φθεγγόμενον, ἄπνουν καὶ ἄναυδον καὶ ἀκίνητον ἀθρόως γενόμενον, καὶ πάντα αὐτῶν σβεσθέντα τὰ φυσικὰ αἰσθητήρια, οὐκ ὄψεως, οὐκ ἀκοῆς ἐνεργούσης, οὐκ ἄλλου τινὸς ὧν ἡ αἴσθησις τὴν ἀντίληψιν ἔχει; Ὧ| κἂν πῦρ προσενέγκῃς, κἂν σίδηρον, κἂν ἀνατέμῃς διὰ ξίφους τὸ σῶμα, κἂν τοῖς σαρκοβόροις προθῇς, κἂν ἐγκρύψῃς χώματι, πρὸς ἅπαντα ὁμοίως ὁ κείμενος ἔχει. Ὅταν οὖν ἐν τούτοις βλέπηται ἡ μεταβολὴ, τὸ δὲ ζωτικὸν ἐκεῖνο αἴτιον, ὅ τί ποτε ἦν, ἀφανές τε καὶ ἄδολον ἀθρόως γένηται, καθάπερ ἐπὶ λύχνου σβεσθέντος τῆς τέως ἐξαπτομένης ἐφ' ἑαυτοῦ φλογὸς οὔτε ἐπὶ τῆς θρυαλλίδος μενούσης, οὔτε ἑτέρωθί που μεθισταμένης, ἀλλ' εἰς ἀφανισμὸν παντελῆ μεταχωρούσης, πῶς ἂν γένοιτο τὴν τοσαύτην μεταβολὴν ἐνεγκεῖν ἀλύπως μηδενὶ, προδήλως ἐπερειδόμενον; Ἔξοδον γὰρ ψυχῆς ἀκούσαντες, τὸ μὲν ὑπολειφθὲν ὁρῶμεν, τὸ δὲ χωρισθὲν ἀγνοοῦμεν, αὐτό τε ὅ τί ποτε κατὰ τὴν φύσιν ἐστὶ, καὶ εἰς ὅ τι μετακεχώρηκεν, οὐ γῆς, οὐκ ἀέρος, οὐχ ὕδατος, οὐκ ἄλλου τινὸς τῶν στοιχείων ἐν ἑαυτῷ δεικνύντος ἐκείνην τὴν δύναμιν τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἐκχωρήσασαν: ἧς ὑπεξελθούσης νεκρόν ἐστι τὸ ὑπολειφθὲν καὶ πρὸς διαφθορὰν ἤδη ἐκκείμενον.