vii THE STAGES OF LIFE AND DEATH 321 



1901. Williani James, who was in Eome at the same time as 

 Myers and was with him during the last weeks of his life, writes 

 in a letter to Podmore announcing his death : " His demeanour 

 throughout the illness has been superb, showing how a really 

 living belief in immortality will help a man." The illustrious 

 physicist, Oliver Lodge, describes the death of Myers in the 

 following words : 



" The termination of his life, which took place at Eome in the 

 presence of his family, was physically painful owing to severe 

 attacks of difficult breathing which constantly preceded sleep ; 

 but his bearing under it all was so patient and elevated as to 

 extort admiration from the excellent Italian doctor who attended 

 him ; and in a private letter by an eye-witness his departure was 

 described as ' a spectacle for the Gods ; it was most edifying to 

 see how a genuine conviction of immortality can make a man 

 indifferent to what to ordinary people is so horrible/ . . . 



" Death he did not dread. That is true ; and his clear, happy 

 faith was the outcome entirely of his scientific researches. The 

 years of struggle and effort and systematic thought had begotten 

 in him a confidence as absolute and supreme as is to be found in 

 the holiest martyr or saint. By this I mean that it was not 

 possible for any one to have a more absolute and childlike con- 

 fidence that death was a mere physical event. To him it was an 

 adversity which must happen to the body, but it was not one of 

 these evils which may assault and hurt the soul. An important 

 and momentous event truly, even as birth is ; a temporary lapse 

 of consciousness, even as a trance may be ; a waking up to strange 

 and new surroundings, like a more thorough emigration than any 

 that can be undertaken on a planet ; but a destruction, or lessen- 

 ing of power no whit. Rather an enhancement of existence, an 

 awakening from this earthly dream, a casting off of the trammels 

 of the flesh and putting on of a body more adapted to the needs of 

 an emancipated spirit, a wider field of service, a gradual oppor- 

 tunity of re-uniting with the many who have gone before. So he 

 believed on what he thought a sure foundation of experience, and 

 on the strength of that belief he looked forward hopefully to 

 perennial effort and unending progress. . . . 



" Such was his faith ; by this he lived, and in this he died. 

 Religious men in all ages have had some such faith, perhaps a 

 more restful and less strenuous faith ; but to Myers the faith did 

 not come by religion : he would have described himself as one 

 who walked by sight and knowledge rather than by faith, and 

 his eager, life-long struggle for knowledge was in order that he 

 might by no chance be mistaken. 5 ' Proceedings of the Society for 

 Psychical Research, voL xvii., 1901-3, p. 5. 



In order to ensure ourselves this ideal euthanasia we have 

 but to convince ourselves that materialism is utterly unable to afford 



VOL. v T 



