3IO LIFE AND DEATH. 



which are in no way revealed to him. What does 

 their death matter to him ? To him there is but one 

 poignant question, that of being separated or not 

 being separated from the society of his fellows. 

 Death is no longer to feel, no longer to think ; it is 

 the assurance that one will never feel, one will never 

 think again. Sleep, dreamless sleep, is already in our 

 eyes a kind of transient death ; but, when we fall asleep 

 we are sure of waking again. There is no awaking 

 from the sleep of death. But that is not all. Man 

 knows that death, this dreamless sleep that knows no 

 waking, will be followed by the dissolution of his 

 body. And what a dissolution will there be for the 

 body, the object of his continual care ! Remember 

 the description of Cuvier the flesh that passes from 

 green to blue and from blue to black, the part which 

 flows away in putrid venom, the other part which 

 evaporates in foul emanations, and finally, the few 

 ashes that remain, the tiny pinch of mineral?, saline 

 or earthy, which are all that is left of that once 

 animated masterpiece. 



7 he Popular View. To the man afraid of death 

 it seems, in the presence of so great a catastrophe, 

 that the patient analysis of the physiologist scrupu- 

 lously noting the succession of phenomena and ex- 

 plaining their sequence is uninteresting. He will 

 only attach the slightest importance to knowing that 

 vestiges of vitality remain in this or that part of his 

 body, if they do not re-establish in every part the 

 status quo ante. He cares not to hear that a certain 

 time after the formal declaration of his death his 

 nails and his hair will continue to grow, that his 

 muscles will still have the useless faculty of con- 

 traction, that every organ, every tissue, every element, 



