SCIENCE AND DEATH 267 



case of conscious animals, the change is supposed 

 to be followed by permanent loss of consciousness. 



Now, what is the cause of the change ? Is death 

 some mysterious force, or is it just the forces we 

 see ordinarily at work among atoms and molecules ? 

 The decomposition it causes is of exactly the same 

 class as any other chemical decomposition, and 

 follows similar laws. Chemically speaking, it is a 

 breaking down of large, complex, unstable mole- 

 cules into simpler molecules, such as water and 

 ammonia. What takes place after death — after 

 abolition of molar movement — is simply a series of 

 ordinary chemical processes, which can be hastened 

 or retarded by ordinary chemical methods. 



But what is it that initiates these new actions "^ 

 Merely some mechanical or chemical interference 

 with the ordinary molar or molecular movements 

 commonly called vital. We may mechanically 

 prevent the entrance of oxygen to the tissues ; and 

 the protoplasm, debarred from its ordinary ex- 

 change of atoms, will undergo the molecular re- 

 arrangement we know as " rigor mortis " — an 

 arrangement that no longer gives and takes, but 

 gradually, under the chemical influence of the air 

 or of putrefactive germs, breaks down. We may 

 put a bare bodkin into the so-called "vital knot" 

 at the base of the brain, and by disturbing the 

 ordinary molecular vibrations of the cells of the 



