Natural death

“ Not one human being in many thousands dies a natural death. If a man be shot or poisoned we say he dies a violent death, but if he is ill, attended by physicians, and dies, we say he dies a ‘natural’ death. ”

“ To the rule of natural death there are a few exceptions. Unswerving in her great purposes for the universal good, Nature has imposed on the world of life her storms, earthquakes, lightnings, and all those sublime manifestations of her supreme power which, in the infant days of the universe, cowed the boldest and implanted in the human heart fears and superstitions which in hereditary progression have passed down even to the present generations. ”

“ This is not so much a process of natural death as of artificial death, regularly appearing in each individual at a corresponding period, because, at a certain time of life, the organism becomes influenced by the same unfavourable conditions. ”

“ When, following out this idea, we picture to ourselves the conditions under which primitive man lived, it will be evident at once how relatively infrequent must have been his observation of what we usually term natural death. ”

“ Death, you see, is the protagonist in this biological play, or rather the mainspring of the machine. And, undoubtedly, death is not only conspicuous in nature but is of profound significance for life. Is it or is it not also of value in a sense surpassing that which the biologist acknowledges? Ought we to look upon it as the enemy or as the friend of life?
One thing is plain. Those men of science who saw it as protagonist were right in thinking that by the death, that is, by the natural selection, of the unfit from among the fit, the survival of useful variations may be assisted. ”

“ Death is thus presented as the natural term of life with its constant wear and tear, as the necessary end of the spontaneous development peculiar to living beings. But it is also determined by the pressure of outside forces, by the action of environment. ”

“ Natural death is rare.—Accidental death may be divided into that brought on by diseases, and that which happens suddenly.—The latter will more particularly occupy us.—Why?—General phenomenon of all sudden deaths.—They all commence by the heart, lungs and brain.—Course we shall pursue in the examination. ”

“ The definition of Death which science has given us is this: A falling out of correspondence with environment. When, for example, a man loses the sight of his eyes, his correspondence with the environing world is curtailed. His life is limited in an important direction ”

“ Thompson Seton tells us in his book on wild animals that not one among them ever dies a natural death. As the opposite extreme of vital persistence we have the man whose life, in spite of acute disease, is prolonged against reason by science ”

“ Thus physical death appears in our experience as an occurrence resulting from a series of physiological processes. As a natural phenomenon its very prevalence is of a deep rational interest. Meanwhile, it involves chemical and physical changes which are not essentially different from countless other changes going on in the organic world. For science it therefore has the same sort of importance that any other event in the biological realm may come to have. ”

“ We do not know with any precision what are the immediate causes of death in a species. Is there a definite limit to life imposed at first? or is this limit left, so to speak, to be determined by accidental circumstances? ”

“ From the foregoing accounts we see that the Melanesians and the Caffres, two widely different and widely separated races, agree in recognising at least three distinct causes of what we should call natural death. ”

“ I have declared heretofore, that there is no such thing as death in Nature, but what is commonly named death, is but an alteration or change of corporeal motions, and the death of an animal is nothing else but the dissolving motions of its figure; for when a man is dying, the motions which did formerly work to the consistence of his figure do now work to the dissolution of his figure, and to the production of some other figures, changing and transforming every part thereof ”

“ I know not whether my readers will take the same concern as I do in this subject of the dying-out of species, but to me it possesses a very peculiar interest. Death is a mysterious event, come when and how it will; and surely the departure from existence of a species, of a type of being, that has subsisted in contemporary thousands of individuals, for thousands of years, is not less imposingly mysterious than that of the individual exemplar. ”

“ A study of this question leads us to some very curious inferences. The more we look into the matter the more the thought forces itself home to us that the idea of natural death, as we now conceive it, came to primitive man as a relatively late scientific induction. ”

“ We noted above that it is to death, a necessity much hated, much maligned, that we owe the possibility of our own birth and standing-room on the face of the globe; but the theory of Natural Selection makes it further clear that the causes of death which we most dread and think evil of—war and famine and pestilence—are tending continually to improve the races of living creatures. ”

“ Let us consider the beginning of death on the earth; that is, of natural, not of merely accidental death. For it had a beginning, not coeval with the coming of life. There are living creatures now who normally escape it, who die only by accident, are, in fact, if they die, always killed. There are creatures alive now whose years are to be numbered by thousands upon thousands upon thousands, yet who have never grown old. ”

“ Could perfect correspondence between an organism and its environment be perpetually [87] maintained, physical death could only occur as the final stage in the gradual decline of the medium of the spirit. Such natural dissolution appears to be part of the order of manifested life, requisite for its continuity and for the evolution of species, and necessary for the development of the spiritual desire for immortality. ”

“ The sharpness of death removed from those who die, the poignancy of grief would be almost equally removed from those who survive, were natural euthanasia the prevailing fact. Our sensibilities are governed by the observance of natural law and the breach of it. It is only when Nature is vehemently interrupted that we either wonder or weep. ”

“ Even what we call a natural death is a greater struggle than that which other animals go through, and is, in fact, the most artificial of all deaths. The lower animals, practically speaking, do experience a natural death, i. ”

“ Somewhat thus has been man’s experience with all the great powers of Nature—with fire and flood on the earth, with the winds and lightning of heaven. With intelligent treatment they have become his very ready helpers and allies. And, as indicated in the outset of this book, we may fairly expect the same conclusion with regard to the great natural event and process termed Death. The time has come when we are really called upon to face up to the fact of our decease from the present conditions of life, physical and mental ”

“ It is evident (whatever view one may take of that inner person and its perduration into other regions of existence) that the former mode of death is the more normal, natural and desirable of the two, and the one which we should encourage and cultivate ”

“ Remains of these creatures that have died natural deaths seldom have been found, either in Asia or Africa. Yet obviously the great beasts are mortal, subject to various fatal ailments and to the inevitable decay of age. ”

“ Who can say whether what we call death may not after all be life, and life death? "Certain germs, falling upon water, become duckweed. When they reach the junction of the land and the water, they become lichen. ”

“ Therefore the being which has just been destroyed—the so-called Death—must be supposed to be endowed with a vivifying and quickening influence, which it can communicate to the vegetable and even the animal world. ”

“ Now the meaning of “life” and “death” is manifold, and not always understood in the same way. For as regards the flesh, the energy and motion of the bodily senses is called “life,” and their extinction and dissolution is named “death.” ”

“ The earth and atmosphere, whence we draw the breath of life, are impregnated with death; health is made to operate its own destruction.
The food that nourishes contains the elements of decay; the soul that animates it by vivifying first, tends to wear it out by its own action; death lurks in ambush along the paths. ”

“ What would take away life? The breathing out of the breath of life, expiring, and thus stopping respiration. When the life is thus expired or gone out of the man he is dead, and when dead he is lifeless as he was before the life was breathed into him. We have now a dead man who is "out of the earth, earthy," whom "the Lord God formed of the dust of the ground," and of whom it is said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." When this dissolution has taken place the man, as a living, formed being, is no more. Death and dissolution have reversed what formation and life did. ”

“ Like this magical writing is the mystery of Nature, of the Universe; so that poet represents Nature as wearing a mask upon which such ever-changing characters appear in letters of fire. No matter how much we learn or theorise, the infinite riddle cannot be read. And one factor of this terrible riddle is Death. Death of all things most puzzles and terrifies man. He sometimes suspects that Nature herself is Death, and purely evil. ”

“ They are dying daily, and continually wasting: Destroyed from morning to evening. Death is still working in us, like a mole digging our grave at each remove, and we so continually lie exposed that we are killed all the day long. [3.] Their life is short, and in a little time they are cut off. It lasts perhaps but from morning to evening. ”

“ We know that “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Nature is constantly demonstrating Life as the manifestation of Death. ”

“ It was death—the final earthly end of every living creature—death, the demolition of the human form, the breaking up of the vital functions, the dissolution between soul and body, the one great event that "happeneth to all;" the doom certain, the hour uncertain; coming in infancy, youth, maturity, as often or oftener than in age. ”

“ Such is the series of slow and partial deaths which, with the old man spared by disease, result in the last end of all. The individual who falls into the sleep of eternity in these conditions, dies like the vegetable which, having no consciousness of life, can have no consciousness of death. ”

“ It is just as natural to die as it is to live—all must die—every blade of grass, every flower, every tree, every living creature must die; it is the inevitable law of nature and it is our duty to acquiesce as cheerfully as we can in this unchanging and universal law. ”

“ The most reasonable and obvious answer, then, to the question, What becomes of the animal life and its satellite passions when the body dies? seems to be that under normal conditions they die too—in the sense that they cease to be manifest. ”

“ Can the death of this lump of clay change the I that is really myself? Can anything exterminate the living me? Every throb of my whole being tells me that I am more than this perishable flesh—that I am more than time or place or condition or death! ”

“ Every species is as prolific as it can be compatibly with the development of its individuals; and the deaths that ensue from inanition, disease, violence, present a stupefying scene. The best one can say for it is that, as life rises in the organic scale, the death rate declines. ”

“ In this view, Death is simply the loosening and termination of the action of this power—over certain regions of the organism; a process by which, when these superficial parts become hardened and osseous, as in old age, or irreparably damaged, as in cases of accident, the inward being sloughs them off, and passes into other spheres. ”

“ By and by you shall see more of me.” But Nature lay dead, with a great white sheet cast over face and form. Not dead?—Just as much dead as ever was man, save for the inner death with which he kills himself, and which she cannot die. ”

“ It may be said that these creatures are not dead, but merely in a condition of suspended vitality. That, however, is only begging the question by making the incapacity for restoration to life part of the definition of death. ”

“ It is a cruel death to die to be merely drowned, and to go through the ordinary common-places of suffocation; but to see your death gradually rising to your eyes, to feel the water rising, inch by inch, upon your shivering sides, and to anticipate the certainly coming, choking struggle for your last breath, when, with the gurgling sound of an overflowing brook taking a new direction, the cold brine pours into mouth, ears, and nostrils, usurping the seat and avenues of health and life, and, with gradual flow, stifling—smothering—suffocating! It were better to die a thousand common deaths. ”

“ When the experiences of the dual nature, the body and soul, from any cause, bring the body, or the brain into conditions where it can no longer respond to the uses of the spirit, then occurs what is called death—physical dissolution. ”

“ But that is a desirable death, which nature brings on us by way of dissolution. For nature, having herself formed the union between our body and soul, knows best in what manner it may be most easily dissolved, and grants us a longer day to do it, than we could expect from sickness, which is violent. ”