DR. PHILIP ON THE NATURE OF DEATH. 171 



and if any cause of failure in these powers occur, it is evident, that whatever be the 

 state of the sensitive system, its powers must fail with them. 



THE natural death of the animal is the death of old age ; and as this is the simplest 

 form of death, it is that which I shall first consider. We shall find that the state 

 which immediately precedes this death, and must consequently be considered as its 

 cause, must, in the nature of things, differ from sleep in no other respect than the less 

 vigorous state of the functions of both systems, and consequently that these states are 

 identical ; the greater or less general vigour making no difference in their nature. 



We are not necessarily born to suffering. All natural states, with the exception of 

 child-bearing, (and in its most natural state even this is hardly an exception,) are 

 more or less pleasurable. It will appear from the nature of our constitutions, that the 

 last feelings in natural death are necessarily of the same nature as those which pre- 

 cede sleep. It is only where the course of our decay is disturbed, that suffering of any 

 kind attends it. 



From a knowledge of the animal economy, we might, independently of experience, 

 have foretold that a state of sleep would be that which immediately precedes the last 

 act of dying from old age. It appears from what was said of the nature of sleep in 

 the paper above referred to, that although the vital organs do not, in it, partake of 

 the peculiar state which constitutes sleep, their functions are all, for the time, impaired 

 by the exhaustion of the sensitive system. The respiration, we have seen, is rendered 

 less frequent, in consequence of which the activity both of the circulation and the 

 other assimilating functions which depend on it, is, for the time, lessened. 



Now, as the death of old age arises from the gradual failure of those functions, it 

 must necessarily take place at the time at which their vigour is most impaired. If 

 the vital powers are still capable of restoring the sensitive system under the disadvan- 

 tage of a diminished frequency of respiration, it is evident that, if their decay be 

 gradual, nothing occurring suddenly to accelerate it, they cannot fail to maintain the 

 functions of that system during the short time which intervenes before the recurrence 

 of sleep again exposes them to the same difficulty. Their failure necessarily takes 

 place at the time when their functions are most difficult. The death of old age, there- 

 fore, is literally the last sleep, uncharacterized by any peculiarity. The general lan- 

 guor of the functions in the last waking interval is attended with no peculiar suffering, 

 and the last sleep commences with the usual grateful feelings of repose, the last feel- 

 ings experienced ; for with what takes place after them, the feelings, being suspended, 

 have no concern. 



The only difference between the last, and the sleep of former times, is, that the ex- 

 haustion of the sensitive system, which is at first, as in the latter case, only partial, 

 (for in the beginning of this sleep the sleeper may be roused by more powerful stimu- 

 lants than those which preceded it,) becomes in its continuance, in consequence of the 

 failure of those powers which formerly restored the sensitive system, complete. 



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