LIFE AND DEATH. 113 



have not been so completely thought out that it is useless to con- 

 sider them once more. 



The question what do we understand by death ? must be de- 

 cided before we can speak of the origin of death . Gotte says, ' we 

 are not able to explain this general expression quite definitely and 

 in all its details, because the moment of death, or perhaps more 

 exactly the moment when death is complete, can in no case be pre- 

 cisely indicated. We can only say that in the death of the higher 

 animals, all those phenomena which make up the life of the indivi- 

 dual cease, and further that all the cells and elements of tissue which 

 form the dead organism, die, and are resolved into their elements.' 



This definition would suffice if it did not include that which is 

 to be defined. For it assumes that under the expression ' dead 

 organism ' we must include those organisms which have brought to 

 an end the whole of their vital functions, but of which the component 

 cells and elements may still be living. This view is afterwards 

 more accurately explained, and in fact there is no doubt that the 

 cessation of the activity of life in the multicellular organism rarely 

 implies any direct connection with the cessation of vital functions in 

 all its constituents. The question however arises, whether it is right 

 or useful to limit the conception of death to the cessation of the 

 functions of the organism. Our conceptions of death have been 

 derived from the higher organisms alone, and hence it is quite 

 possible that the conception may be too limited. The limitation 

 might perhaps be removed by accurate and scientific comparison 

 with the somewhat corresponding phenomena among unicellular 

 organisms, and we might then arrive at a more comprehensive 

 definition. Science has without doubt the right to make use of 

 popular terms and conceptions, and by a more profound insight to 

 widen or restrict them. But the main idea must always be retained, 

 so that nothing quite new or strange may appear in the widened 

 conception. The conception of death, as it has been expressed with 

 perfect uniformity in all languages, has arisen from observations on 

 the higher animals alone ; and it signifies not only the cessation of 

 the vital functions of the whole organism, but at the same time 

 the cessation of life in its single parts, as is shown by the impossi- 

 bility of revival. The post-mortem death 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, 



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