114 LIFE AND DEATH. 



of which the vital processes partially 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 purpose, 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 immaterial 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 definitely limited. We might 

 consider the caterpillar of Euprepia flavia 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 irre- 

 trievable 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 the post-mortem 

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

 accompany 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 organism, so that it would 

 be lost labour to insert a clause in our definition of death which 

 would include this phenomenon. The same objection might be 



