This is the second of the Principal Doctrines and the argument the whole system rests on. It is not consolation about an afterlife but the denial that there is a subject for anything to happen to: the soul is atomic, it comes apart at death, and a state with no one in it cannot be bad for anyone. Epicureans wrote it on tombstones as an abbreviation — non fui, fui, non sum, non curo: I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care — which is about as close to a creed as the school came. Modern readers often find the argument works on the fear of being dead and does nothing at all for the fear of dying, and ancient critics said the same.