ANIMALS. 23? 



as the body begins to decrease, life decreases also ; for, as the human 

 frame diminishes, and its juices circulate in smaller quantity, life di- 

 minishes and circulates with less vigour; so that as we begin to live 

 by degrees, we begin to die in the same manner. 



Why then should we fear death, if our lives have been such as not 

 to make eternity dreadful ? Why should we fear that moment, whici. 

 is prepared by a thousand other moments of the same kind ? the first 

 pangs of sickness being probably greater than the last struggles of de- 

 parture. Death, in most persons, is as calmly endured as the disor- 

 der 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 num- 

 ber die quietly, and seemingly without pain : and even the agonies of 

 the former rather terrify the spectators than torment the patient ; for 

 how many have we not seen who have been accidentally relieved from 

 this extremity, 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, therefore, without sensation ; 

 and of those few that still preserve their faculties entire to the last 

 moment, there is scarce 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 incurable disorder, which he must know to be so, by fre- 

 quent examples of his case, which he perceives to be so, by the in- 

 quietude of all around him, by the tears of his friends, and the depar- 

 ture 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 inroads 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 reco- 

 ver, 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 unexpected 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 alarmed by the mistaken assi- 

 duity of his attendants. 



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 disappears 

 when we come to approach it more closely. Our ideas of its terrors 

 are conceived 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 increased our appre- 

 hensions, by reasoning on the extent of our sufferings. "' It must be 



