NATURAL EUTHANASIA. 619 



loss of the cliilcl aud the youth we mouni in the perfect purity of sor- 

 row ; for the loss of the man in his activity, we feel grief mingled 

 with selfish regret that -so much that was useful has ceased to be. 

 In the loss of the aged, in their days of second childishness and mere 

 oblivion, we sympathize for something that has passed away, and for 

 a moment recall events saddening to the memory ; but how soon this 

 consoling thought succeeds and conquers that the race of the life 

 that has gone was run, and that for its own sake the dispensation of 

 its removal was most merciful and most wise ! 



To the rule of natural death there are a few exceptions. Un- 

 swerving in her gi-eat purposes for the universal good, Nature has 

 imposed on the world of life her storms, earthquakes, lightnings, and 

 all those sublime manifestations of her supreme power which, in the 

 infant days of the universe, cowed the boldest and implanted in the 

 human heart fears and superstitions which in hereditary progression 

 have passed down even to the present generations. Thus she has ex- 

 posed us all to accidents of premature death, but, with infinite wisdom, 

 and as if to tell us that her design is to provide for these inevitable 

 calamities, she has given a preponderance of number at birth to those 

 of her children who by reason of masculine strength and courage shall 

 have most frequently to face her elements of destruction. Further, 

 she has provided that death by her, by accidental collision with herself, 

 shall, from its very velocity, be freed of pain. For pain is a product of 

 time. To experience pain the impression producing it must be trans- 

 mitted from the injured part of the living body to the conscious centre, 

 must be received at the conscious centre, and must be recognized by 

 the mind as a reception ; the last act being in truth the conscious act. 

 In the great majority of deaths from natural accidents there is not 

 sufficient time for the accomplishment of these progressive steps by 

 which the consciousness is reached. The unconsciousness of existence 

 is the first and last fact inflicted upon the stricken organism : the 

 destruction is so mighty that the sense of it is not revealed. 



The duration of time intended by Nature to extend between the 

 birth of the individual aud his natural euthanasia is undetermined, 

 except in an approximative degree. From the first, the steady, 

 stealthy attraction of the earth is ever telling upon the living body. 

 Some force liberated from the body during life enables it, by self-con- 

 trolled resistance, to overcome its own weight. For a given j^art of 

 its cycle the force produced is so efficient that the'body grows as well 

 as moves by its agency against weight ; but this special stage is lim- 

 ited to an extreme, say of thirty years. There is, then, another pe- 

 riod, limited probably also to thirty years, during which the living 

 structure in its full development maintains its resistance to its weight. 

 Finally, there comes a time when this resistance begins to fail, so 

 that the earth, which never for a moment loses her grasp, commences 

 and continues to prevail, and after a struggle, extended from twenty 



