PART I. INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL ACCOUNT. DEATH is no unworthy subject for human consideration. Since men began to think, this subject is one that has exercised their brains. Although ignorance may sometimes, perhaps, be bliss,' it can hardly be doubted that man's knowledge that every one must surely die has helped to set the race a-thinking, and thinking on this subject has helped to make their lives throughout historic times different to those of all other animals. One might, indeed, define civilised man as the animal who knows that animals must die; for man (i.e. civilised man) is probably (almost certainly) the only animal who does know it.2 Cf. the ending of Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"; also Byron's Manfred (Act i., Scene 1) "Sorrow is knowledge." According to Ecclesiastes (i. 18) "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," and Sir William D'Avenant (1606–1668) propounded the same idea in his play, The Just Italian (Act v., Scene 1): "Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is scarcely necessary to point out that sayings of the kind are intimately connected with the confusion between the right thing for a man to do and what is really best for the community. Since man has tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, no ignorance can justify him-no matter whether he profess any religion, or none at all, unless he be an irresponsible moral imbecile-in escaping from the duty of doing what he thinks is right, that is to say, the best thing to do, under the circumstances of the case, for himself and others. But what is really the best may be something quite different-which he can only hope to learn by the trouble and pain of education, experience, and knowledge. * This is beautifully referred to by the French novelist, Pierre Loti, in his Vies des deux Chattes: "Et tandis qu'elle se laissait leurrer, la Moumoutte, par tous ces airs de joie, de jeunesse, de commencement, moi, au contraire, qui savais que cela passe, je sentais pour la première fois monter dans ma vie l'impression du soir, du grand soir inexorable et sans lendemain, du suprême automne qu'aucun printemps ne suivra plus." Much has been said about animals creeping into a hole or secluded spot on the approach of death, but such an act does not signify that animals have any instinctive realisation of what is going to happen to them. A man, when he feels weak and faint, is not likely B Gedenke zu leben"-"Think of how to live""Work and despair not "--was Goethe's advice. Indeed, few persons, nowadays, would contradict the proposition of Spinoza,3 that the proper study for a wise man is not death, but how to live, since a wise man is not guided by the fear of death, but by his direct desire of the good. Yet, however little a man's everyday active life may ordinarily be affected by knowledge of death and thoughts of what lies beyond the grave, I believe that to banish such thoughts altogether, if it were possible, would be to kick down one of the chief ladders by which the race has climbed to its present position. How much, indeed, do we owe to the knowledge of death! How many a good and usefully altruistic action would never have been performed but for this knowledge and the thoughts arising from it! The Death's-heads and every lugubrious memento mori of the Middle Ages have, indeed, had their use. to remain in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare, but that does not signify that he thinks he is about to die, and, yet, the sensation of fainting is probably like some modes of dying and may, indeed, terminate in death before consciousness is regained. 3 Spinoza, Ethic, iv. 67. In fact, according to Spinoza, there is nothing that a wise man thinks of less than death. on the I see, however, that Dr. E. L. Keyes, in a short interesting article Fear of Death" (Harper's Monthly Magazine, July, 1909, p. 212), says that the following motto (used by Hermann Graf von Neuenaar, who died in 1530, and quoted by the Prussian General J. M. von Radowitz, who died in 1853) was chosen by John Fiske, the American writer (1842-1901), to adorn his library : "Disce ut semper victurus; Vive ut cras moriturus." The same inscription is amongst the maxims painted in the Aula of the "Gymnasium" in Düren (Germany, Rhineland). On modern bookplates (especially amongst the thoughtful and artistic classes) skulls and skeletons are not uncommon-serving as memento mori emblems, or as part of various allegorical devices. Cf. the paragraph on modern bookplates at the end of Part I. E. 5 Even nowadays one may occasionally meet with a memento mori device or inscription scrawled up by a visitor or passer-by in some forum or public place, for instance, the saying, "Live as you would die." R. Dagley mentions that, about 1818, some clever designs representing skeleton-like figures, engaged in gambling, dancing, boxing, &c., were chalked up on a wall bordering the road from Turnham Green to Kew Bridge. In his chapter on "What Life gains from Death," R. W. MacKenna (The Adventure of Death, London, 1916, p. 110) quotes Robert Browning:- "You never know what life means till you die. Even throughout life, 'tis death that makes life live, It is from another point of view regarding the beneficial influence of the idea of death that Jelliffe (review of G. Stanley Hall's article on "Thanatophobia and Immortality," - American Journ. Psychology, 1915, vol. xxvi. p. 550,-in Journ. Nerv. and Mental Disease, 1917, vol. xlv. p. 274) writes: "The fear of death and the love of life, which are but manifestations of the same impulse, have driven man to all those achievements by which he has sought to realize the fulness of living. Hygiene and science as well as religion and art, with all else that mark man's achievement, owe their products to this desire and endeavour to avoid every degree of death and attain the maximum of life " The subject of the mere aspects of death may perhaps be likened to a time-worn skeleton, but when associated with their correlated effects on living beings, and with the attitudes of living beings towards death, the skeleton becomes clothed in flesh and blood, possesses heart and mind and passions, and above everything else, a little (though only a very little) of the priceless treasure of free will. In this work I shall not, of course, attempt to discuss the aspects of death such as actually present themselves to dying persons, though I intend, further on, to give a few references to show that the near approach of natural death is generally by no means so terrible to the dying individual himself as it is still popularly supposed to be (see Part II., xix., xx.). A. Philosophical Ideas amongst the Ancients-Consolation-'Epicureanism." MANY philosophic ideas underlying the memento mori principle are expressed by ancient authors. Seneca, who tries to explain that death when it comes is not to be regarded as a calamity, though it may appear to be one ("Mors inter illa est, quae mala quidem non sunt, tamen habent mali speciem "), writes (Epist. Mor., lib. xi. Ep. 3 (82), 16): "Itaque etiamsi indifferens mors est, non tamen ea est, quae facile neglegi possit: magna exercitatione durandus est animus, ut conspectum ejus accessumque patiatur." He thus counsels one to become familiar with thoughts of death, so that one may not be frightened by its aspect or approach; in fact, he tells one, as Horace (Epist., lib. i. 4, line 13) puts it, "Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum," and, as Martial (Epigramm., iv. 54) says:— "Si sapis, utaris totis, Coline, diebus; Extremumque tibi semper adesse putes." Cf. William Congreve, in his Letter (1729) to Sir Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham : "Defer not till to-morrow to be wise; To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise." Advice of this kind has not escaped the attention of Roman satirists (vide one of the fragments of Petronius); the seriousness, indeed, of Horace's words is much modified by the lines which end his epistle in question. Palladas (Anthol. Graec. Palat., xi. 300) advises : |