I cannot entirely resolve this question. I shall only observe that society has an especial influence in creating this difference; for man in the midst of his fellow-creatures makes a very great use of his animal life; the springs of it are habitually more fatigued than those of his organic life, and worn away under the influence of society; the eye by artificial light, the ear by sounds too frequently repeated, and above all by those of speech, which are wanting to other animals;[52] the smell in like manner is debilitated by factitious odours, the taste by savours, which certainly are not natural, the touch and the tact by constant attrition of dress,[53] and the brain by too incessant thinking.
We live then externally with excess. We abuse our animal life; it is circumscribed by nature within limits which are too much enlarged by us for its duration; thus it cannot be surprising that it should cease so soon. In fact we have seen the vital powers divided into two orders, the one appertaining to this life, the other to the organic life. These two orders may be compared to two lights which burn at the same time, and which have only a determined quantity of materials for aliment. In which case, if the one be agitated by a stronger wind than the other is, it must necessarily be the sooner extinguished.
Yet social influence notwithstanding is very advantageous to man. It gradually disengages him from those bonds which attach him to life, and renders the instant of death less terrible.
The idea of our last hour, is painful only because it puts an end to our animal life. The borders of the tomb are beset with terrors, which will all be found to originate in the thought of such privation.
It is not the pain of death, which we fear; how many dying men are there for whom the gift of existence would be precious, though purchased at the expense of an uninterrupted series of suffering! If we look at the animal which lives but little externally, he by no means trembles at beholding the instant of his death.[54]
Were it possible to suppose a man, who in dying should lose his internal functions only, such man would look upon his death with an indifferent eye, because he would feel that the blessings of existence, are attached to the powers of feeling the influence of nature and society.
If the animal life then be terminated gradually, if each of the bonds by which we are capable of the pleasures of living, be broken by little and little, such pleasures will escape us imperceptibly, and the old man will have forgotten the value of life, when it is about to be taken from him; such destruction will resemble that of the vegetable only.
II. The Organic Life in natural death does not terminate as it does in accidental death.
The organic life remains with the old man after the almost total loss of his animal life, and terminates in a very different manner from that which is exemplified in the case of violent and sudden death. The latter has two periods, the first of which is marked by the sudden cessation of respiration and the circulation, the second by the slow and gradual extinction of the other organic functions.