THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DEATH. , 327 



of that evidence furnished by the stopping of the heart. 

 When the heart has definitely ceased to beat, then resur- 

 rection is no longer possible, and the life which deserts it 

 is preparing to enter upon a new cycle. 



Hamlet^ in his famous soliloquy, speaks of " that undis- 

 covered country from whose bourn no traveler returns," 

 and mournfully asks what must be the dreams of the man 

 to whom death has opened the portals of those gloomy 

 regions. We can give no clearer answer in the name of 

 physiology than Shakespeare's prince gives. Physiology 

 is dumb as to the destiny of the soul after death ; of that 

 it teaches, and it can teach us, nothing. It is plain, and 

 it would be childish to deny it, that any psychical or sen- 

 tient manifestation and any concrete representation of the 

 personality are impossible after death. The dissolution 

 of the organism annihilates surely, and of necessity, the 

 functions of sensation, motion, and will, which are insepa- 

 rable from a certain combination of material conditions. 

 We can feel, move, and will, only so far as we have organs 

 for reception, transmission, and execution. These assur- 

 ances of science are above discussion, and should be ac- 

 cepted without reserve. Do they tell us any thing of the 

 destiny of the psychical principles themselves ? Again we 

 say, No, and for the very simple reason that science does 

 not attain to those principles ; but metaphysics, which does 

 attain to them, authorizes us, nay, further, compels us, to 

 believe that they are immortal. They are immortal, as 

 the principles of motion, the principles of perception, all 

 the active unities of the world, are immortal. What is the 

 general characteristic of those unities ? It is that of being 

 simple, which means being indestructible, which means 

 being in harmonious mutual connection, after such a man- 

 ner that each one of them perceives the infinite order of 

 the other. If this connection did not exist, there would 

 be no world. What is the characteristic of the psychical 



