3°8 
Painless Death . 
[April, 
brain to complete the molecular arrangement necessary to 
consciousness would be wholly suspended before there would 
be time for the transmission of the intelligence of the 
injury. In such a case, also, although the injury might be 
of a nature to cause death, this would occur without feeling 
of any kind. Death in this case would be simply the sudden 
negation of life, without any intervention of consciousness 
whatever. 
Doubtless there are many kinds of death of this character : 
the passage of a rifle-bullet through the brain is a case in 
point. The time required for the bullet in full velocity to 
pass clean through a man’s head may be roughly estimated 
at a thousandth part of a second. Here, therefore, would 
be no room for sensation, and death would be painless. 
But there is another action which far transcends in rapidity 
that of the rifle-ball. A flash of lightning cleaves a cloud, 
appearing and disappearing in less than a hundred- 
thousandth part of a second, and the velocity of electricity 
is such as would carry it in a single second of time over a 
distance almost equal to that which separates the earth and 
moon. 
A luminous impression once made upon the retina endures 
for about one-sixth of a second, and this is why we see a 
ribbon of light when a glowing coal is caused to pass rapidly 
through the air. A body illuminated by an instantaneous 
flash continues to be seen for the sixth of a second after the 
flash has become extinCt ; and if the body thus illuminated 
be in motion, it appears at rest at the place where the flash 
falls upon it. 
The colour-top is familiar to most of us. By this instru- 
ment a disk with differently coloured sectors is caused to 
rotate rapidly ; the colours blend together, and, if they are 
chosen in the proper proportions, the disk will appear white 
when the motion is sufficiently rapid. Such a top rotating 
in a dark room and illuminated by an eleCtric spark appears 
motionless, each distinct colour being clearly seen. Prof. 
Dove has found that an illumination by a flash of lightning 
produces the same effeCt. During a thunderstorm he put a 
colour-top in exceedingly rapid motion, and found that every 
flash revealed the top as a motionless object with its colours 
distinct. If illuminated solely by a flash of lightning, the 
motion of all bodies on the earth’s surface would, according 
to Prof. Dove, appear suspended. A cannon-ball, for ex- 
ample, would appear to have its flight arrested, and would 
seem to hang motionless in space as long as the luminous 
