Suicide or Hypnosis? 



shamming dead, as the vulgar idiom has it 

 and as the fashionable theories repeat. It 

 is really hypnotized. 



A shock which disturbs its nerve-centres, 

 an abrupt fright which seizes upon it reduce 

 it to a state of somnolence like that of the 

 bird which is swung for a second or two with 

 its head under its wing. A sudden terror 

 sometimes deprives us human beings of the 

 power of movement, sometimes kills us. 

 Why should not the insect's organism, so 

 delicate and subtle, give way beneath the 

 grip of fear and momentarily succumb? If 

 the emotion be slight, the insect shrinks into 

 itself for an instant, quickly recovers and 

 makes off; if it be profound, hypnosis super- 

 venes, with its prolonged immobility. 



The insect, which knows nothing of death 

 and therefore cannot counterfeit it, knows 

 nothing either of suicide, that desperate 

 means of cutting short excessive misery. No 

 authentic example has ever been given, to 

 my knowledge, of an animal of any kind rob- 

 bing itself of its own life. That those most 

 richly endowed with the capacity of affection 

 sometimes allow themselves to die of grief 

 I grant you; but there is a great difference 

 between this and stabbing one's self or cut- 

 ting one's throat. 



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