18
We must regard as vain and foolish such exclamations as these: But he ought not to have been snatched away while young ! For who may say what ought to be ? Many other things, of which one may say they ought not to have been done, have been done, and are done, and will be done over and over again. For we have come into this world, not to make laws for its governance, but to obey the commandments of the gods who preside over the universe, and the decrees of Fate or Providence.
19
But do those who mourn for the untimely dead, mourn on their own account or on account of the departed ? If on their own account, because they have been cut off from some gratification or profit or comfort in old age, which they might have expected from the dead, then is their excuse for grieving wholly selfish; for it will be plain that they mourn, not for them, but for their services. But if they mourn on account of the dead, then if they will fix their attention on the fact that the dead are in no evil state, they will rid themselves of grief by following that wise and ancient admonition to magnify the good and to minimize and lessen the evil. If, then, mourning is a good, we ought to enlarge and magnify it in every way. But if, as the truth is, we admit it to be an evil, we ought to minimize and reduce it, and as far as possible to efface it.
