22 A BOOK OF MORTALS 



make Life worse than Death. None the less, it is only in 

 the East that the tie of a common mortality is recognised as 

 binding between all God's creatures, and that the last 

 supreme struggle of each organism for its own trivial in- 

 dividual life is held to equalise all in the moment of Death. 

 And yet, though this is true in the main, there is an un- 

 mistakable inward cleavage beneath the similarity of out- 

 ward signs. The beasts that perish seem to have no fear of 

 Death, while the dread of it is, with man, almost the main- 

 spring of Life. Indeed the lower animals, as we call them, 

 touch without apparent effort that ideal of calm courage 

 which is set before humanity by its poets, its philosophers. 



" I mourn not those who lose their vital breath 

 But those who living live in fear of death " 



said Lucillus, and Schiller with his triumphant question, 

 " What shall he fear who fears not Death .? ", Shakespeare 

 with his deliberate axiom, " The sense of Death is most in 

 apprehension," all sound the same note of eulogy for dis- 

 regard of Death. 



And yet, with the contrariety of human nature, when we 

 find this high level of excellence amongst the beasts, we 

 proceed straightway to cheapen it, to deny its very existence 

 by saying easily, " How can they fear what they fail to 

 recognise ? " " Why should they fear Death who have no 

 life beyond ? " 



Surely this last argument sounds inconceivably strange 

 in the mouths of those whose creed teaches — or should 

 teach them — that the Sting of Death, the Victory of the 

 Grave, are lost in the certainty of Immortality ! 



And the first argument ^ Is it really anything more than 



