68 HISTORY OF 



Why should we fear that moment which is pre- 

 pared by a thousand other moments of the same 

 kind ; the first pangs of sickness being probably 

 greater than the last struggles of departure? 

 Death, in most persons, is as 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 ago- 

 nies, the greatest number die quietly, and seem- 

 ingly 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 sen- 

 sation ; and their pains were only those of which 

 they had an idea. 



The greatest number of mankind die, there- 

 fore, without sensation ; and of those few that 

 still preserve their faculties entire to the last mo- 

 ment, there is scarcely one of them that does not 

 also preserve the hopes of still outliving his dis- 

 order. 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 frequent 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 departure or the face of the phy- 

 sician, is nevertheless still in hopes of getting 

 over it. His interest is so great, that he only at- 



