114 ^^^^ ^^^^ DEATH. [III. 



of the cells is also part of death, and was so, long before science 

 established the fact that an organism is built up of numerous 

 very minute living elements, of which the vital processes par- 

 tially continue for some time after the cessation of those of the 

 whole organism. It is precisely this incapacity on the part of 

 the organism to reproduce the phenomena of life anew, which 

 distinguishes genuine death from the arrest of life or trance ; 

 and the incapacity depends upon the fact that the death of the 

 cells and tissues follows upon the cessation of the vital functions 

 as a whole. I would, for this reason, define death as an arrest 

 of life, from which no lengthened revival, either of the whole 

 or any of its parts, can take place ; or, to put it concisely, as a 

 definite arrest of life. I believe that in this definition I have 

 expressed the exact meaning of the conception which language 

 has sought to convey in the word death. For our present pur- 

 pose, the cause which gives rise to this phenomenon is of no 

 importance, — whether it is simultaneous or successive in the 

 various parts of the organism, whether it makes its appearance 

 slowly or rapidly. For the conception itself it is also quite im- 

 material whether we are able to decide if death has really taken 

 place in any particular case ; however uncertain we might be, 

 the state which we call death would be not less sharply and 

 definitelj' limited. We might consider the caterpillar of Eii- 

 prcpia flavin to be dead when frozen in ice, but if it recovered 

 after thawing and became an imago, we should say that it had 

 only been apparently dead, that life stood still for a time, but 

 had not ceased for ever. It is only the irretrievable loss of life 

 in an organism which we call death, and we ought to hold fast 

 to this conception, so that it will not slip from us, and become 

 worthless, because we no longer know what we mean by it. 



We cannot escape this danger if we look upon i\\c post-mortem 

 death of the cells of the body as a phenomenon which may ac- 

 company death, but which may sometimes be wanting. An 

 experiment might be made in which some part of a dead 

 animal, such as the comb of a cock, might be transplanted, 

 before the death of the cells, to some other living animal : such 

 a part might live in its new position, thus showing that single 

 members may survive after the appearance of death, as I 

 understand it. But the objection might be raised that in 

 such a case the cock's comb has become a member of another 



