104 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. n 



Would you not despise a man who was set in a 

 company of those appointed to death if he asked 

 by way of favour to be allowed to be the last to 

 lay his head upon the block ? We do the same 

 in setting such store upon a little delay in the time 

 of death. Capital punishment is the sentence on 



7 all mankind, and the sentence is most just. We 

 possess what is wont to be regarded as the greatest 

 consolation that those sentenced to the extreme 

 penalty could enjoy ; the circumstances of all being 

 the same, our fate is the same. If handed over by 

 a judge or magistrate to execution, we should follow 

 and render obedience to our executioner ; what 

 difference does it make whether it is by order of 

 another or of our own accord that we go to death ? 



How foolish you must be, how forgetful of your 

 feebleness if you are afraid of death every time it 

 thunders ! Does your abiding safety really depend 



8 on this ? Will life be secure if you escape the 

 lightning ? You will be a victim of the sword, 

 of a stone, of a fever. The lightning is not the 

 most serious of dangers, it is only the most con- 

 spicuous. Your fate, I should think, would not be a 

 bad one if the inconceivable rapidity of your death 

 prevented any sense of it, if your death was the 

 occasion of sacrificial ceremonies, if even when you 

 breathe your last, you are not quite a superfluity, 



9 but remain as a sign of some great event. Your 

 fate is surely not bad if you are buried along 

 with the bolt of lightning. And yet you are in 

 panic at a crash in the sky, you tremble at the 

 sound of a hollow cloud ; as often as there is a 

 flash you are ready to give up the ghost. Well 

 then, is it in your judgment more creditable to die 

 of sheer chicken-heartedness than to be killed by 



