384 HISTORY OF 



dying before the rest; so that death is only the last shade in the 

 picture ; and it is probable that man suffers a greater change in 

 going from youth to age, than from age into the grave. When 

 we first begin to live, our lives may scarcely be said to be our 

 own ; as the child grows, life increases in the same proportion ; 

 and is at its height in the prime of manhood. But as soon aa 

 the body begins to decrease, life decreases also ; for as the hu- 

 man frame diminishes, and its juices circulate in smaller quantity, 

 life diminishes and circulates with less vigour ; so that as we 

 begin to live by degrees, we begin to die in the same manner. 



Why then should we fear death, if our lives have been such 

 as not to make eternity dreadful ? Why should we fear tmat 

 moment, which is prepared by a thousand other moments of the 

 same kind ? the first pangs of sickness being probably greater 

 than the last struggles of departure. Deatli, in most persons, is 

 as calmly endured as the disorder that brings it on. If we in- 

 quire 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 agonies, the greatest number die quietly, and 

 seemingly 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 en- 

 dured ? In fact, they had ceased to live during that time when 

 they ceased to have sensation ; and their pains were only those 

 of which they had an idea. 



The greatest number of mankind die, therefore, without sen- 

 sation ; and of those few that still preserve their faculties entire 

 to the last moment, there is scarcely one of them that does not 

 also preserve the hopes of still outliving his disorder. 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 peiceives to be so, by the inquietude of all around him, by 

 the tears of his friends, and the departure or the face of the 

 physician, is, nevertheless, still in hopes of getting over it. His 

 interest is so great, that he only attends to his own representa- 

 tions ; the judgment of others is considered as a hasty conclu- 

 sion ; and while death every moment makes new inroads upon 

 his constitution, and destroys life in some part, hope still seems 



