528 THE HUMAN BODY 



until the summons comes. To the popular imagination the pros- 

 pect of dying is often associated with thoughts of extreme suffer- 

 ing; personifying life, men picture a forcible and agonizing rending 

 of it, as an entity, from the bodily frame with which it is associated. 

 As a matter of fact, death is probably rarely associated with any 

 immediate suffering. The sensibilities are gradually dulled as the 

 end approaches ; the nervous tissues, with the rest, lose their func- 

 tional capacity, and, before the heart ceases to beat, the individual 

 has commonly lost consciousness. 



The actual moment of death is hard to define : that of the Body 

 generally, of the mass as a whole, may be taken to be the moment 

 when the heart makes its last beat; arterial pressure then falls ir- 

 retrievably, the capillary circulation ceases, and the tissues, no 

 longer nourished from the blood, gradually die, not all at one in- 

 stant, but one after another, according as their individual respira- 

 tory or other needs are great or little. 



While death is the natural end of life, it is not its aim we should 

 not live to die, but live prepared to die. Life has its duties and its 

 legitimate pleasures, and we better play our part by attending to 

 the fulfilment of the one and the enjoyment of the other, than by 

 concentrating a morbid and paralyzing attention on the inevitable, 

 with the too frequent result of producing indifference to the work 

 which lies at hand for each. Our organs and faculties are not tal- 

 ents which we may justifiably leave unemployed; each is bound to 

 do his best with them, and so to live that he may most utilize them. 

 An active, vigorous, dutiful, unselfish life is a good preparation for 

 death ; when that time, at which we must pass from the realm con- 

 trolled by physiological laws, approaches, when the hands tremble 

 and the eyes grow dim, when " the grasshopper shall be a burden 

 and desire shall fail," then, surely, the consciousness of having 

 quitted us like men in the employment of our faculties while they 

 were ours to use, will be no mean consolation. 



