CHAPTER VII 



DEATH AND IMMORTALITY 



ONLY occasionally have the egotism and self- 

 confidence of man risen to such heights that he has 

 dared to believe in an earthly immortality for him- 

 self, as in the case of Louis XIV. To the majority 

 of mankind the termination of life, though often 

 anticipated with some degree of dread, appears as 

 an entirely normal incident. In the period of active 

 growth the mind gives little heed to the thought of 

 death, and it is only in the period of decline, in the 

 second half of life, that there is a tendency to revert 

 to the idea of death or to dwell upon it. Tempera- 

 ment and the bodily sensations have much to do 

 with the extent to which the mind dwells on the 

 thought of dissolution. The robust man, engaged in 

 affairs, is apt to think of death only in so far as its 

 possibility necessitates practical measures, but the 

 man of sensibility and ideas early becomes inter- 

 ested in death as a phenomenon, and his interest is 

 liable to be heightened to a peace-disturbing degree 

 in the event of the consciousness of self being height- 

 ened through that form of ill health which sensitizes 

 the nervous system to all kinds of unpleasant impres- 

 sions. The conception of death which is formed in 



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