DEATH 



cells by atrophy, dissolution, withering (mortification), 

 or coUiquation ; and partly of metaplasmosisms, or meta- 

 morphoses of the plasm — fatty, mucous, chalky, or 

 amyloid metamorphoses of the cells. It was the great 

 merit of Rudolph Virchow that he proved, in his epoch- 

 making Cellular Pathology (1858), that all diseases in 

 man and other organisms may be reduced to such modi- 

 fications of the cells which make up the tissues. Hence 

 disease, with its, pain, is a physiological process, a life 

 under injurious and dangerous conditions. As in all 

 normal vital phenomena, so in abnormal or pathological, 

 the ultimate ground must be sought in the physical and 

 chemical processes in the plasm. Pathology is a part of 

 physiology. This discovery has cut the ground from 

 under the older notion of disease as a special entity, a 

 devil, or a divine punishment. 



The natural physical explanation of death, which has 

 been made possible by modem physiology and pathology, 

 has shattered, not only all the old superstitious ideas 

 about disease and death, but also a number of important 

 metaphysical dogmas which built upon them. Such 

 was, for instance, the naive belief in a conscious Provi- 

 dence, controlling the fate of individuals and determining 

 their death. I do not fail to appreciate the great sub- 

 jective value which such a trust in a protecting Provi- 

 dence has for men amid their countless dangers. We may 

 envy the childish temper for the confidence and hope 

 which it derives from this belief. But as we do not seek 

 to have our emotions gratified by poetic fictions, we are 

 bound to point out that reason cannot detect the shadow 

 of a proof of the existence and action of this conscious 

 Providence, or "loving Father in heaven." We read 

 daily in our journals of accidents and crimes of all kinds 

 that cause the unexpected death of happy human beings. 

 Every year we read with horror the statistics of the 

 thousands of deaths from shipwreck and railway acci- 



107 



