170 



A HISTORY OP 



calmly endured as the disorder that brings it 

 on. If we inquire from those whose business 

 it is to attend the sick and the dying, we shall 

 find that, except in a very few acute cases, 

 where the patient dies in agonies, the greatest 

 number die quietly, and seemingly without 

 pain : and even the agonies of the former ra- 

 ther terrify the spectators than torment the 

 patient ; for how many have we not seen who 

 have been accidentally relieved from this ex- 

 tremity, and yet had no memory of what they 

 then endured ? In fact, they had ceased to 

 live during that time when they ceased to 

 have sensation ; and their pains were only 

 those of which they had an idea. 



The greatest number of mankind die, there- 

 fore, without sensation ; arid of those few that 

 still preserve their faculties entire to the last 

 moment, there is scarcely one of them that 

 does not also preserve the hopes of still out- 

 living his disorder. Nature, for the happiness 

 of man, has rendered this sentiment stronger 

 than his reason. A person dying of an incu- 

 rable disorder, which he must know to be so, 

 by frequent examples of his case ; which he 

 perceives to be so by the inquietude of all 

 around him, by the tears of his friends, and 

 the departure or the face of the physician, is, 

 nevertheless, still in hopes of getting over it. 

 His interest is so great, that he only attends 

 to his own representations; the judgment of 

 others is considered as a hasty conclusion ; 

 and while death every moment makes new in- 

 roads upon his constitution, and destroys life 

 in some part, hope still seems to escape the 

 universal ruin, and is the last that submits to 

 the blow. 



Cast your eyes upon a sick man, who has 

 a hundred times told you that he felt himself 

 dying, ; .that he was convinced he could not 

 recover, and that he was ready to expire; 

 examine what passes on his visage, when, 

 through zeal or indiscretion, any one comes 

 to tell him that his end is at hand. You will 

 see him change, like one who is told an un- 

 expected piece of news. He now appears 

 not to have thoroughly believed what he had 

 been telling you himself: he doubted much ; 

 and his fears were greater than his hopes ; 

 but he still had some feeble expectations of 

 living, and would not have seen the ap- 

 proaches of death, unless he had been alarm- 



ed by the mistaken assiduity of his atten- 

 dants. 



Death, therefore, is not that terrible thing 

 which we suppose it to be. It is a spectre 

 which frights us at a distance, but which dis- 

 appears when we come to approach it more 

 closely. Our ideas of its terrors are conceiv- 

 ed in prejudice, and dressed up by fancy : we 

 regard it not only as the greatest misfortune, 

 but as also an evil accompanied with the most 

 excruciating tortures ; we have even increas- 

 ed our apprehensions, by reasoning on the 

 extent of our sufferings. "It must be dread- 

 ful," say some, " since it is sufficient to sepa- 

 rate the soul from the body : it must be long, 

 since our sufferings are proportioned to the 

 succession of our ideas; and these being pain- 

 ful, must succeed each other with extreme ra- 

 pidity." In this manner has false philosophy 

 laboured to augment the miseries of our na- 

 ture ; and to aggravate that period which Na- 

 ture has kindly covered with insensibility. 

 Neither the mind nor the body can suffer these 

 calamities : the mind is, at that time, mostly 

 without ideas ; and the body too much enfee- 

 bled to be capable of perceiving its pain. 

 A very acute pain produces either death or 

 fainting, which is a state similar to death : the 

 body can suffer but to a certain degree ; if 

 the torture become excessive, it destroys it- 

 self; and the mind ceases to perceive, when 

 the body can no longer endure. 



In this manner, excessive pain admits of no 

 reflection : and wherever there are any signs 

 of it, we may be sure that the sufferings of the 

 patient are no greater than what we ourselves 

 may have remembered to endure. 



But, in the article of death, we have many 

 instances in which the dying person has shown 

 that very reflection which presupposes an ab- 

 sence of the greatest pain; and, consequently, 

 that pang which ends life cannot even be so 

 great as those which have preceded. Thus, 

 when Charles XII. was shot at the siege of 

 Frederickshall, he was seen to clap his hand 

 on the hilt of his sword; and although the 

 blow was great enough to terminate one of 

 the boldest and bravest lives in the world, 

 yet it was not painful enough to destroy re- 

 flection. He perceived himself attacked ; 

 he reflected that he ought to defend himself; 

 and his body obeyed the impulse of his mind, 



