THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANISMS 805 



resting instinct, and seldom takes much thought about resting 

 habits. In many cases, too, there has come about in human societies 

 a system of protective agencies which allow the weak to survive 

 through a period of prolonged senility. We cannot, perhaps, do 

 otherwise in regard to those we love ; but it is plain that our better 

 ambition would be to heighten the standard of vitality rather than 

 merel}'^ to prolong existence, so that ii we have an old age it may be 

 without senility. Those whom the gods love die young, aged in 

 years though they may be. But here we leave the problem of lon- 

 gevity to Mr. Bernard Shaw, with hopes of his further and practical 

 continuance of investigation and exposition. 



THE BIOLOGY OF DEATH.— Death may be defined biologicaUy 

 as the irrecoverable cessation of bodily life. The use of the word 

 "irrecoverable" is to evade the difficulty raised by states of latent 

 life, where the seed, the germ, the vinegar-eel, the wheel animalcule, 

 the water-flea, and so forth, lie low for months or years without 

 showing any of the customary signs of vitality, and yet do not die. 

 They lie like wound-up watches which have stopped, though they 

 will begin to tick again when they receive some stimulus jar. It is 

 difficult to understand how a living organism can revive after having 

 been brittle for months. Ordinary living matter or protoplasm 

 contains at least 75 per cent, of water. 



But, leaving aside the difficulty of animals that lie low, in a state 

 of suspended animation, we may profitably inquire into the different 

 kinds of death that are continually . occurring in Wild Nature. In the 

 first place, and easiest to understand, there is violent death, to 

 which the majority of animals succumb. It is due to some violence 

 that shatters or fatally damages an essential part or the whole of the 

 organism. The shot makes holes in the rabbit's circulation or brain; 

 the grouse is crushed in the eagle's talons ; the frog is frozen stiff in 

 the drain-pipe near the pond ; the trout is swallowed by a pike ; the 

 snail is obliterated in the landslide ; the starfish is broken under the 

 stone dislodged by the waves. 



So it is all over the world — crushing and bruising, freezing and 

 burning, smothering and blowing away; accidents will happen. And 

 being eaten by another animal is so common that it has ceased to 

 be an accident. The conjugation of the verb to eat never stops, and 

 we have to soothe ourselves as best we can with Darwin's words: 

 "When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with 

 the full belief that the war of Nature is not incessant, that no fear 

 is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigorous, the 

 healthy, and the happy survive and multiply." There is much 

 truth in Goethe's saying that death is Nature's device for securing 

 plenty of life; and we may add that Nature usually sifts towards 

 health and vigour, as with the mutually increasing swiftness 



