ABSTRACT
Rosenbaum focuses on the Silenian wisdom expressed in the paper – the best thing is never to have been born; the next best thing is to leave this world as soon as possible. He notes, Immortality is but an improbable possibility, and annihilation's eventuality affects action, Lytton Strachey finds. The majority of actions are either automatic, or the result of merely temporary motives. We continue to breathe because our lungs take in the air; we continue to work because we want to pass the next examination. But it seems unlikely that belief in a general proposition of such interest as the annihilation of life at Death should exercise no effect at all. Its results would be important if it only indirectly brought about a general depression of spirits. There is no question as to the triumph of either Evil or Good; there is only the certainty of the triumph of Death.
