As a sensation of happiness occurs even in cases of pathological death, it is much more likely to occur in natural death. If natural death be preceded by the loss of the instinct of life and by the acquisition of a new instinct, it would be the best possible end compatible with the real organisation of human nature.
I do not pretend to give the reader a finished study on natural death. This chapter of Thanatology, the science of death, only opens the subject; but it is already apparent that study of the circumstances of natural death in plants, in the animal world, and in human beings, may give facts of the highest interest to science and humanity.
PART IV
SHOULD WE TRY TO PROLONG HUMAN LIFE?
I
THE BENEFIT TO HUMANITY
Complaints of the shortness of our life—Theory of “medical selection” as a cause of degeneration of the race—Utility of prolonging human life
Although the duration of the life of man is one of the longest amongst mammals, men find it too short. From the remotest times the shortness of life has been complained of, and there have been many attempts to prolong it. Man has not been satisfied with a duration of life notably greater than that of his nearest relatives, and has wished to live at least as long as reptiles.
In antiquity, Hippocrates and Aristotle thought that human life was too short, and Theophrastus, although he died at an advanced age (he lived probably seventy-five years) lamented when he was dying “that nature had given to deer and to crows a life so long and so useless, and to man only one that was often very short.”[105]
Seneca (De brevitate vitæ) and later, in the 18th century, Haller, strove in vain against such complaints, which have lasted until our own days. Whilst animals have no more than an instinctive fear of danger, and cling to life without knowing what death is, men have acquired an exact idea of death, and their knowledge increases their desire to live.