The Hour Before the Dawn. 115 



increase of population, but rather to diminution. So 

 markedly, indeed, has this been found to be true, that the 

 inference is a fair one, that were enlightened persons, men 

 and women, freed from the fear of death, the cruder 

 pleasures of procreation would be foregone, from choice, 

 for greater and purer joys in a life of a higher type. We 

 may, at least, reply confidently that those who are able to 

 achieve greatly prolonged life for themselves will not 

 overpopulate the earth. 



More specifically death often is not an evil, but a bless- 

 ing to the hopelessly diseased, infirm, and decrepit. Death 

 may even be voluntarily and logically sought by the hope- 

 less sufferer. There are grave doubts whether, if nothing 

 better were to be hoped for in the future by humanity 

 than life as the majority of our fellow-creatures hold it at 

 present, — grave doubts whether unconsciousness were not 

 better than the burden and pain of their lives. 



These phases and negations but prove the converse of 

 the question, however. The primary instinct of life is to 

 live. Nature, ab initio, makes oath that to be is better 

 than not to be ; nor have all the consolatory sophistries of 

 creeds ever really convinced a human being of normal in- 

 tellect that he will live on personally conscious, remem- 

 bering and seeing, after the death and dissolution of his 

 body. Such "faith" may assist a little to mitigate the 

 bitter pang of dying, but never fully reassures ; the com- 

 mon sense still perceives the real situation, and cannot, 



