IN A.HTICULO MORTIS. 
279 
the world, he sleeps into existence and awakens into know- 
I ledge ; at his exit from the world, his physical cycle completed, 
I he doses into sleep and sleeps into death. 
' This purely painless, purely natural physical death, is the 
true euthanasia, and it is the business equally of the physician 
and of the priest to lead all men to this death as healthily, as 
I happily, as serenely as can be. In respect to the physician, 
this is his business all in all ; and, in regard to the priest, it is 
I so far his business that, in proportion as his labours help to- 
I wards the end, they help to the moralisation of the world. For 
euthanasia, though it be open to* every race and every nation 
to have and to hold, is not to be had by any nation that dis- 
obeys the laws on which true health, and its obedient follower 
i true happiness, depend ; while, to a nation that should obey the 
law, death would neither be a burthen nor a sorrow. 
I Despite all our efforts against her, even as the social state 
I now is, nature will indeed still vindicate herself , at times, and 
show us determinedly how she would, if she could, involve, fold 
imperceptibly, life in death : how, if the free will, with which 
she has armed us, often against herself, were brought into time 
i and tune with her, she would give us the beauties and wonders 
of the universe for our portion, so long as the brain could receive 
I and retain, the mind appreciate, and at last would wean us 
* from the world by the most silent of ways, leading us to eu- 
, thanasia. The true euthanasia (I have read it through all its 
stages ten times at the least) is, in its perfection, among the most 
; wonderful of natural phenomena. The faculties of mind which 
j have been intellectual, without pain, or anger, or sorrow, lose their 
' way, retire, rest. Ideas of time and place are gradually lost ; 
i ambition ceases ; repose is the one thing asked for, and sleep 
day by day gently and genially wiles away the hours. The 
wakings are short, painless, careless, happy : awakenings to a 
I busy world; to hear sounds of children at play; to hear, just 
i audibly, gentle voices offering aid and comfort; to talk a little 
on simple things, and by the merest weariness to be enticed once 
again into that soothing sleep, which, day by da}q with more 
! frequent repetition, overpowers all. At last, the intellectual 
I man reduced to the instinctive, the consummation is desirable ; 
i and without pain or struggle, or knowledge of the coming 
I I event, the deep sleep that falls so often is the sleep perpetual — 
i j euthanasia. This, I repeat, is the death b}^ nature ; and when 
J i mankind has learned the truth ; when, as will be, the time shall 
; j come, that there shall be no more an infant of days, nor an old 
: : man who hath not filled his days,” the act of death shall be as 
; ' mercifully accomplished as any operation, which, on the living 
I j body steeped in deep oblivion, the modern surgeon painlessly 
1 i performs. 
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