Plato tells us that Socrates, facing execution in 399 b.c., declared that “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.” Writing nearly two thousand years later, Michel de Montaigne remarked that “all the wisdom and reasoning in the world boils down finally to this point: to teach us not to be afraid to die.”

If the measure of a philosopher is the ability to face death without fear, then Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963), David Hume (1711–1776), and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) were great philosophers indeed. In the penultimate paragraph of his brief autobiography, “My Own Life,” David Hume relates that he has been “struck with a Disorder in my Bowels” which has “become mortal and incurable.” He remarks on his state of mind as follows:

Samuel Johnson's biographer James Boswell was simultaneously fascinated and horrified by Hume's calm acceptance of his own impending death. This was because Boswell knew that Hume did not believe in an afterlife. Boswell visited Hume repeatedly while Hume was on his deathbed, questioning him on the topic of annihilation.