He  reminds  her  of  the  brighter,  more  cheering  vision  which
they  have  eiyoyed  together  as  communicants  in  the  Dionysiac
mystmes. If  the  soul  is  undying,  if  it  is  of  divine  parentage
and  has  a  divine  destiny,  then  the  shortness  of  its  imprison-
ment and  exile  is  a  blessing. The  captive  bird  may  come  by
use  and  wont  actually  to  love  its  cage. And  the  worst  misery
of  old  age  is  not  grey  hairs  and  weakness,  but  a  dull  absorption
in  the  carnal  and  forgetfulness  of  divine  things. "  Whom  the
gods  love  die  young."  By  calling  them  back  early,  they  save
them  from  long  wanderings.^

Plutarch's  belief  in  immortality  is  a  religious  faith,  a
practical  postulate. He  nowhere  discusses  the  bases  of  the
belief  in  an  exhaustive  way. It  is  rather  inseparable  from  his
conception  of  God  and  His  justice,  and  the  relation  of  the
human  soul  to  Gk)d.'  He  admits  that  the  prospect  of  reward
or  punishment  in  another  world  has  but  little  influence  on
men's  conduct^  Few  believe  in  the  tales  of  tortures  of  the
damned. And  those  who  do  can  soothe  their  fears,  and  pur-
chase a  gross  immortality,  by  initiations  and  indulgences.^
Yet  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  to  Plutarch  the  hope  of  the
eternal  life  was  a  precious  possession. He  assails  with  force,
and  even  asperity,  the  Epicurean  school  for  their  attempt  to  rob
humanity  of  it,  on  the  pretext  of  relieving  men  of  a  load  of  super-
stitious fears. They  are  like  men  on  board  a  ship  who,  letting
the  passengers  know  that  they  have  no  pilot,  console  them  with
the  further  information  that  it  does  not  matter,  as  they  are
bound  to  drive  upon  the  rocks.*  The  great  promise  of  Epicurus
was  to  free  men  from  the  spectral  terrors  with  which  poetic
fancy  had  filled  the  scenery  of  the  under  world. But  in  doing
80,  he  invested  death  with  a  new  horror  infinitely  worse  tiian
the  fabled  tortures  of  the  damned. It  ^as  a  subtle  feOlacy
whiV.h  tAii9lif. thiiit-  Aft  AnniKiloft'/^rt   tnvnlves  the  extinction  of


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5S2  THE  REVIVAL  OF  PAGANISM  book  iv

of  life  was  a  mere  imagination  projected  on  a  blank  future
where  no  regret  could  ever  disturb  the  tranquillity  of  nothing-
ness.^ Plutarch  took  his  stand  on  psychology. The  passion
for  continued  existence  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  most  im-
perious in  our  nature. 