THE MEANING OF THE TERM DEATH
"And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to
wear."--ROSSETTI
Whatever Life may really be, it is to us an abstraction: for the word
is a generalised term to signify that which is common to all animals
and plants, and which is not directly operative in the inorganic
world. To understand life we must study living things, to see what
is common to them all. An organism is alive when it moulds matter to
a characteristic form, and utilises energy for its own purposes--the
purposes especially of growth and reproduction. A living organism,
so far as it is alive, preserves its complicated structure from
deterioration and decay.[34]
Death is the cessation of that controlling influence over matter and
energy, so that thereafter the uncontrolled activity of physical and
chemical forces supervene. Death is not the absence of life merely,
the term signifies its departure or separation, the severance of the
abstract principle from the concrete residue. The term only truly
applies to that which has been living.
Death therefore may be called a dissociation, a dissolution, a
separation of a controlling entity from a physicochemical organism;
it may be spoken of in general and vague terms as a separation
of soul and body, if the term 'soul' is reduced to its lowest
denomination.
Death is not extinction. Neither the soul nor the body is
extinguished or put out of existence. The body weighs just as much
as before, the only properties it loses at the moment of death are
potential properties. So also all we can assert concerning the vital
principle is that it no longer animates that material organism: we
cannot safely make further assertion regarding it, or maintain its
activity or its inactivity without further information.
When we say that a body is dead we may be speaking accurately. When
we say that a _person_ is dead, we are using an ambiguous term;
we may be referring to his discarded body, in which case we may
be speaking truly and with precision. We may be referring to his
personality, his character, to what is really himself; in which case
though we must admit that we are speaking popularly, the term is
not quite simply applicable. He has gone, he has passed on, he has
"passed through the body and gone," as Browning says in _Abt Vogler_,
but he is--I venture to say--certainly not dead in the same sense as
the body is dead. It is his absence which allows the body to decay,
he himself need be subject to no decay nor any destructive influence.
Rather he is emancipated; he is freed from the burden of the flesh,
though with it he has also lost those material and terrestrial
potentialities which the bodily mechanism conferred upon him; and
if he can exert himself on the earth any more, it can only be with
some difficulty and as it were by permission and co-operation of
those still here. It appears as if sometimes and occasionally he can
still stimulate into activity suitable energetic mechanism, but his
accustomed machinery for manifestation has been lost: or rather it is
still there for a time, but it is out of action, it is dead.
Nevertheless inasmuch as those who have lost their material body have
passed through the process of dissolution or dissociative severance
which we call death, it is often customary to speak of them as dead.
They are no longer living, if by living we mean associated with a
material body of the old kind; and in that sense we need not hesitate
to speak of them collectively as 'the dead.'
We need not be afraid of the word, nor need we resent its use or
hesitate to employ it, when once we and our hearers understand the
sense in which it may rightly be employed. If ideas associated with
the term had always been sensible and wholesome, people need have had
no compunction at all about using it. But by the populace, and by
Ecclesiastics also, the term has been so misused, and the ideas of
people have been so confused by insistent concentration on merely
physical facts, and by the necessary but over-emphasised attention to
the body left behind, that it was natural for a time to employ other
words, until the latent ambiguity had ceased to be troublesome. And
occasionally, even now, it is well to be emphatic in this direction,
in order to indicate our disagreement with the policy of harping
on worms and graves and epitaphs, or on the accompanying idea of a
General Resurrection, with reanimation of buried bodies. Hence in
strenuous contradiction to all this superstition comes the use of
such phrases as 'transition' or 'passing,' and the occasional not
strictly justifiable assertion that "there is no death."
For as a matter of familiar fact death there certainly is; and to
deny a fact is no assistance. No one really means to deny a fact;
those who make the statement only want to divert thoughts from a side
already too much emphasised, and to concentrate attention on another
side. What they mean is, there is no extinction. They definitely
mean to maintain that the process called death is a mere severence
of soul and body, and that the soul is freed rather than injured
thereby. The body alone dies and decays; but there is no extinction
even for it--only a change. For the other part there can hardly
be even a change--except a change of surroundings. It is unlikely
that character and personality are liable to sudden revolutions or
mutations. Potentially they may be different, because of different
opportunities, but actually at the moment they are the same. Likening
existence to a curve, the curvature has changed, but there is no
other discontinuity.
Death is not a word to fear, any more than birth is. We change our
state at birth, and come into the world of air and sense and myriad
existence; we change our state at death and enter a region of--what?
Of Ether, I think, and still more myriad existence; a region in which
communion is more akin to what we here call telepathy, and where
intercourse is not conducted by the accustomed indirect physical
processes; but a region in which beauty and knowledge are as vivid as
they are here: a region in which progress is possible, and in which
"admiration, hope, and love" are even more real and dominant. It is
in this sense that we can truly say, "The dead are not dead, but
alive." ούδέ τεθνᾷσι θανὸντες.
APPENDIX ON FEELINGS WHEN DEATH IS IMMINENT
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT BY O. J. L.
A lady was brought by a friend to call on us at Mariemont during a
brief visit to Edgbaston, and I happened to have a talk with her
in the garden. I found that she had been one of the victims of the
_Lusitania_, and as she seemed very cheerful and placid about it,
I questioned her as to her feelings on the occasion. I found her a
charming person, and she entered into the matter with surprising
fulness, considering that she was a complete stranger. Her chief
anxiety seems to have been for her husband, whom she had left either
in America or the West Indies, and for her friends generally; but on
her own behalf she seems to have felt extremely little anxiety or
discomfort of any kind. She told me she had given up hope of being
saved, and was only worried about friends mourning on her behalf and
thinking that she must have suffered a good deal, whereas, in point
of fact, she was not really suffering at all. She was young and
healthy, and apparently felt no evil results from the three hours'
immersion. She was sucked down by the ship, and when she came to the
surface again, her first feeling was one of blank surprise at the
disappearance of what had brought her across the Atlantic. The ship
was "not there."
I thought her account so interesting, that after a few months I got
her address from the friend with whom she had been staying, and wrote
asking if she would write it down for me. In due course she did so,
writing from abroad, and permits me to make use of the statement,
provided I suppress her name; which accordingly I do, quoting the
document otherwise in full.
_The Document referred to_
"Your letter came to me as a great pleasure and surprise.
I have always remembered the sympathy with which you
listened to me, that morning at Edgbaston, and sometimes
wondered at the amount I said, as it is not easy to give
expression to feelings and speculations which are only
roused at critical moments in one's life.
"What you ask me to do is not easy, as I am only one of
those who are puzzling and groping in the dark--while you
have found so much light for yourself and have imparted
it to others.
"I would like, however, most sincerely to try to recall
my sensations with regard to that experience, if they
would be of any value to you.
"It would be absurd to say now, that from the beginning
of the voyage I knew what would happen; it was not a
very actual knowledge, but I was conscious of a distinct
forewarning, and the very calmness and peace of the
voyage seemed, in a way, a state of waiting for some
great event. Therefore when the ship was rent by the
explosion (it was as sudden as the firing of a pistol) I
felt no particular shock, because of that curious inner
expectancy. The only acute feeling I remember at the
moment was one of anger that such a crime could have been
committed; the fighting instinct predominated in the face
of an unseen but near enemy. I sometimes think it was
partly that same instinct--the desire to die game--that
accounted for the rather grim calmness of some of the
passengers. After all--it was no ordinary shipwreck, but
a Chance of War. I put down my book and went round to the
other side of the ship where a great many passengers were
gathering round the boats; it was difficult to stand, as
the _Lusitania_ was listing heavily. There seemed to be
no panic whatever; I went into my cabin, a steward very
kindly helped me with a life-jacket, and advised me to
throw away my fur coat. I felt no hurry or anxiety, and
returned on deck, where I stood with some difficulty--
discussing our chances with an elderly man I just knew by
sight.
"It was then I think we realised what a strong instinct
there was in some of us--_not_ to struggle madly for
life--but to wait for something to come to us, whether
it be life or death; and not to lose our personality and
become like one of the struggling shouting creatures who
were by then swarming up from the lower decks and made
one's heart ache. I never felt for a moment that my time
to cross over had come--not until I found myself in the
water--floating farther and farther away from the scene
of wreckage and misery--in a sea as calm and vast as the
sky overhead. Behind me, the cries of those who were
sinking grew fainter, the splash of oars and the calls
of those who were doing rescue work in the lifeboats;
there seemed to be no possibility of rescue for me; so I
reasoned with myself and said, 'The time _has_ come--you
must believe it--the time to cross over'--but inwardly
and persistently something continued to say, 'No--not
now.'
"The gulls were flying overhead and I remember noticing
the beauty of the blue shadows which the sea throws up
to their white feathers: they were very happy and alive
and made me feel rather lonely; my thoughts went to my
people--looking forward to seeing me, and at that moment
having tea in the garden at ----; the idea of their grief
was unbearable--I had to cry a little. Names of books
went through my brain;--one specially, called 'Where
no Fear is,' seemed to express my feeling at the time!
Loneliness, yes, and sorrow on account of the grief
of others--but no Fear. It seemed very normal,--very
right,--a natural development of some kind about to take
place. How can it be otherwise, when it _is_ natural?
I rather wished I knew some one on the other side, and
wondered if there are friendly strangers there who come
to the rescue. I was very near the border-line when a
wandering lifeboat quietly came up behind me and two men
bent down and lifted me in. It was extraordinary how
quickly life came rushing back;--every one in the boat
seemed very self-possessed--although there was one man
dead and another losing his reason. One woman expressed
a hope for a 'cup of tea' shortly--a hope which was
soon to be realised for all of us in a Mine Sweeper
from Queenstown. I have forgotten her name--but shall
always remember the kindness of her crew--specially the
Chief Officer, who saved me much danger by giving me dry
clothes and hot towels.
"All this can be of very little interest to you--I have
no skill in putting things on paper;--but, you know. I
am glad to have been near the border; to have had the
feeling of how very near it is _always_--only there are
so many little things always going on to absorb one here.
"Others on that day were passing through a Gate which was
not open for me--but I do not expect they were afraid
when the time came--they too probably felt that whatever
they were to find would be beautiful--only a fulfilment
of some kind.... I have reason to think that the passing
from here is very painless--at least when there is no
illness. We seemed to be passing through a stage on the
road of Life."
[Footnote 34: See Note C at end of preceding chapter.]