306 NATUKE AND LIFE. 



mal life that suffers the first stroke ; the most manifest ac- 

 tivities of the nervous system are those which come to a 

 halt before all the rest. How is this stoppage brought 

 about ? We must consider separately the order of occur- 

 rences in death from old age, in that occasioned by disease, 

 and in sudden death. 



The man who expires at the close of a long decline in 

 years, dies in detail. All his senses in succession are 

 sealed. Sight becomes dim and unsteady, and at last loses 

 the picture of objects. Hearing grows gradually insensi- 

 ble to sounds ; touch is blunted into dullness ; odors pro- 

 duce but a weak impression ; only taste lingers a little. 

 At the same time that the organs of sensation waste and 

 lose their excitability, the functions of the brain fade out 

 little by little. Imagination becomes unfixed, memory 

 nearly fails, judgment wavers. Further, motions are slow 

 and difficult on account of stiffness in the muscles ; the 

 voice breaks ; in short, all the functions of outward life 

 lose their spring. Each of the bonds attaching the old 

 man to existence parts by slow degrees. Yet the internal 

 life persists. Nutrition still takes place, but very soon the 

 forces desert the most essential organs. Digestion lan- 

 guishes, the secretions dry up, capillary circulation is 

 clogged, that of the large vessels in their turn is checked, 

 and, at last, the heart's contractions cease. This is the in- 

 stant of death. The heart is the last thing to die. Such 

 is the series of slow and partial deaths which, with the old 

 man spared by disease, result in the last end of all. The 

 individual who falls into the sleep of eternity in these con- 

 ditions, dies like the vegetable which, having no conscious- 

 ness of life, can have no consciousness of death. He 

 passes insensibly from one to the other, and to die thus is 

 to know no pain. The thought of the last hour alarms us 

 only because it puts a sudden end to our relations with all 

 our surroundings ; but, if the feeling of these relations has 



