And this also would be a very absurd thing if any one were to say it, namely, that a man is loved by himself in such a manner that that vehement love is referred to some other thing, and not to that very man who loves himself. Now when this is said in the case of friendship, of duty, or of virtue, however it is said, it is still intelligible what is meant by it; but in regard to our own selves, it cannot even be understood that we should love ourselves for the sake ofsomething else, or in a word, for the sake of pleasure. For it is for our sakes that we love pleasure, and not for the sake of pleasure that we love ourselves; although what can be more evident than that every one is not only dear, but excessively dear to himself? For who is there, or at all events how few are there, who when death approaches, does not find
His heart's blood chill'd with sudden fear,
His cheek grow pale?
and if it is a vice to dread the dissolution of nature so excessively, (and the same thing on the same principle may be asserted of our aversion to pain,) still the fact that nearly every one is affected in this manner, is a sufficient proof that nature abhors destruction. And though some men show this dread or aversion to such a degree that they are deservedly blamed for it, still this may show us that such feelings would not be so excessive in some people, if a moderate degree of them were not implanted in mankind by nature.
Nor, indeed, do I mean that fear of death which is shown by those men who, because they think that they are being deprived of the goods of life, or because they fear some terrible events after death, or who, because they are afraid of dying in pain, therefore shun death; for in the case of children, who can have no such ideas or apprehensions, they often show fear if, when playing with them, we threaten to throw them down from any place; and even beasts, as Pacuvius says,
Who have no cunning, or prophetic craft
To ward off danger ere it come,
shudder when the fear of death comes before them. And, indeed, who entertains a different opinion of the wise man himself? who, even when he has decided that he must die, still is affected by the departure from his family, and by the fact that he must leave the light of day. And above all is the power of nature visible in the human race, since many endure beggary to preserve life, and men worn out with old age are tortured with the idea of the approach of death, and endure such things as we see Philoctetes in the play suffer, who, while he was kept in torture by intolerable pains, nevertheless preserved his life by the game which he could kill with his arrows.
He, though slow, o'ertook the swift,
He stood and slew the flying—
as Attius says, and made himself coverings for his body by plaiting the feathers together. I am speaking of mankind, and, indeed, generally of all animals, though plants and trees have nearly the same nature, whether, as is the opinion of some most learned men, because some predominant and divine cause has implanted this power in them, or whether it is accidental. We see those things which the earth produces preserved in vigour by their bark and roots, which happens to animals by the arrangement of their senses, and a certain compact conformation of limb. And with reference to this subject, although I agree with those men who think that all these things are regulated by nature, and that if nature neglected to regulate them, the animals themselves could not exist, still I grant that those who differ on this subject may think what they please, and may either understand that when I say the nature of man I mean man (for it makes no difference); for a man will be able to depart from himself sooner than he can lose the desire of those things which are advantageous to him. Rightly, therefore, have the most learned philosophers sought the principle of the chief good in nature, and thought that that appetite for things adapted to nature is implanted in all men, for they are kept together by that recommendation of nature in obedience to which they love themselves.