The man is dead, says local report, and the consciousness of society undergoes that natural change in regard to the man which I have described.
His name becomes associated with things that were, but no longer are. Even those who theoretically believe that the man continues to live either in happiness or misery, have, most of them, so little confidence in the theory which they have subscribed to, that they never dream of putting forth a mental current based on the theory. To all intents and purposes, society consigns the average man to annihilation, with a half-careless "Poor fellow, so he's gone. We'll see no more of him. Well, no time to weep, seeing as he didn't leave me anything. What new device for entrapping the elusive dollar shall I conjure up to-day?"
I am dead, says the man himself as the shadows which have been gathering upon his senses culminate in a rayless silence, and every thought of motion becomes a recollection, a mere theory of fancy, that will not even approach the dominion of the will.
Death, as a state of consciousness, is a thing entirely new to him, but he cannot reason on the subject. To reason is to live, to set the brain in motion, to perform mental operations; this is no longer possible.
What shall this state be compared to? It is like that of one isolated in a secret cell of his own house, the key turned on him from the outside, every avenue of communication cut off, dead to the world and all that it contains. If a total loss of appetite can be associated with the state, it might continue for an indefinite period; and if the power of thought-transference comes in, a new kind of life has been begun.
But science says that no man is really dead who still retains his consciousness, by which statement science belies its name. Calling itself knowledge, it spreads abroad its own ignorance. How many a post-mortem has been held in the hope of finding the secret chamber wherein that part of man which cannot die has gone to rest! How often the sweet peace of death has become a conscious madness, by this means, God only knows. Gentlemen, desist.
To find a chamber whose occupant is invisible debars you forever from obtaining the proof that you have found it. But perhaps it is not the soul itself that is the object of this search, but rather some special physical representative that might be found still quivering with life and so betray its master. All folly.
The soul when uncontaminated informs the whole outward body. It has its pains and illnesses, more or less affecting the outer form, yet all unrecognized in materia medica, and when its mortal brother is struck with death, bends all its energies to make escape, lest it, too, take on mortality. Failing in its effort to make a doorway for its exit, it suffers for awhile through sympathy, till the final moment sets it free from pain within its small dark house, no longer small, because made clear, transparent, by the touch of death, when the dying has been brave. No trace of foreign matter may remain to start a dissolution, in which case the soul preserves the body from decay without more trouble than a little watchful care.
Sight, hearing, touch, through vibratory currents reach round the world and even touch the clouds; the body has become, in fact, a mansion perfectly adapted to the needs of its proprietor, who finds a new world open to his delighted consciousness, and thanks God fervently for his perfect victory over death, as well as for his comfort and protection within the white, still walls which form, in fact, the first abiding-place of the spirit.
With this still form as passive aid, the soul, with little pain, is able to make the mental transition which its change of circumstance requires. No longer concerned directly with any thought based on material needs or material changes, it finds itself in touch with the moral causes which underlie these changes; and because moral force is most familiarly manifest in and through people, these, and their relations to itself, fill all the mental horizon.