III.] LIFE AND DEATH. II3 



conclusions as to the general causes of these phenomena. At 

 any rate, existing facts have not been so completely thought 

 out that it is useless to consider them once more. 



The question— what do we understand by death ? must be 

 decided before we can speak of the origin of death. Gotte says, 

 'we are not able to explain this general expression quite de- 

 finitely and in all its details, because the moment of death, or 

 perhaps more exactly the moment when death is complete, can 

 in no case be precisely indicated. We can only say that in the 

 death of the higher animals, all those phenomena which make 

 up the life of the individual cease, and further that all the cells 

 and elements of tissue which form the dead organism, die, and 

 are resolved into their elements.' 



This definition would suffice if it did not include that which 

 is to be defined. For it assumes that under the expression 

 ' dead organism ' we must include those organisms which have 

 brought to an end the whole of their vital functions, but of which 

 the component cells and elements maj'- still be living. This view 

 is afterwards more accurately explained, and in fact there is no 

 doubt that the cessation of the activity of life in the multicellular 

 organism rarely implies any direct connection with the cessa- 

 tion of vital functions in all its constituents. The question how- 

 ever arises, whether it is right or useful to limit the conception 

 of death to the cessation of the functions of the organism. Our 

 conceptions of death have been derived from the higher organ- 

 isms alone, and hence it is quite possible that the conception 

 may be too limited. The limitation might perhaps be removed 

 by accurate and scientific comparison with the somewhat cor- 

 responding phenomena among unicellular organisms, and we 

 might then arrive at a more comprehensive definition. Science 

 has without doubt the right to make use of popular terms and 

 conceptions, and by a more profound insight to widen or re- 

 strict them. But the main idea must always be retained, so 

 that nothing quite new or strange may appear in the widened 

 conception. The conception of death, as it has been expressed 

 with perfect uniformity in all languages, has arisen from obser- 

 vations on the higher animals alone ; and it signifies not onl}' 

 the cessation of the vital functions of the whole organism, but 

 at the same time the cessation of life in its single parts, as is 

 shown by the impossibility of revival. The post-niortcni death 



I 



