Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-03-08
LIFE IN DEATH.
Paradoxical as the assertion seems. to tn

Paradoxical as the assertion seems. to the
ordinary mind, uninforrAed as to the latest
revelations of the microscope, there is no
such thing as death in the extinction of life.
Quantitively, not far from five per rcentum OF
the human body consists OF matter that
actually lives; for according to Prof. Beal,
though such tissues as cuticle, muscular
fibre, the finger nails, the hair, the bones,
tendons, etc., contain minute living partl-
cles, they are not living matter in the prop
er acceptations of the term, but matter that
has once passed through the condition Of
life, and is on its way to resolution into such
products as ammonia, carbonic acid, urea,
and so on. At different ages there are some
variations in the comparative quantities OF
living and non living matter in the human
body, the former being relatively larger in
infancy and youth than in manhood and
constantly diminishing as age advances;
but, on the average fully ninety-tive per
centum of living man is already dead
and the process of death-that is, of the
transformation of protoplasm into formed
material of tissue-is one that forms the
primary basis of human life; so that the
very process of living is interlinked and
interviewer and correlated with the process
of death. Every thought, every act Of idea
tion, every contraction of muscle, every
impression of the senses, has its material
equivalent in the death of a given guam
tity of matter that previously lived. The
living matter of the body is composed of
units of protoplasm styled cells-minute,
originally spherical elements each of which,
Independently considered, is microscopic
being, possessing an individual life history
of its own. From forty to sixty days repre-
sent probably the average life time of a
cell and so, in the progress OF human lie
from infancy to age many generations or
cell life are embraced that is to say, man
dies many times before he comes Wis Wis
with the final mystery. 1t is by groups Of
little bodies acting in concert and concur
ring together to produce a single result,
that the complex tissues of organic life are
created and maintained, each of these my
riads of independent lives being a micro
scopic laboratory for the evolution of the
formed materials of muscle, bone, brain,
nerve and membrane, by means of. which
our higher functions are executed. Now
and then cell, or group of cells, rebels
against it's life long slavery to the higher
purpose; and then comes morbid devel-
Opment, such as cancer or tubercle.
1t is now settled fact of physiology that
when man dies-that is, when the func-
tiOnal life is arrested-these little bodies re-
sumo their action as Independent centres of
llNlllS uldUlC1 oO ulllU, ofSoN
ing, there is no less life in the body as it
lies in its coffin habited for the grave than
there was when the eye still softened with
tenderness, the busy brain laid plans for
the future, or the active hand guided the
pen or the pencil and the collective amount
of microscopic life in the form of minute Or
ganisms that will be generated by the dead
body in the progress Of decomposition is an
exact equivalent for the amount of living
matter it originally contained. In other
words, death, in the sense of extinction OF
life, is fiction of our human senses, not
reality. The myriads of cells and cell
groups have ceased to concur in the execu-
tion of the higher purposes of organic life,
but they have not ceased to live, and now,
like Saturn in the old myth devOur the It's
sues they have created.
But if death is in reality fiction, and if
the body in it's coffin is no less living than
before, what mysterious entity or energy
was it that, now departed, once controlled
and subordinated these millions of cell lives
to the higher purposes Of human life :?
Prof. CroOkes would say that it was the
ethereal physical body, with its special
group of energies, transfusing and ldeallZ-
ing the grosser physical body; and he would
point to the fact that human life is COM
posed Of two lives interviewer together, but
fundamentally distinct, in evidence OF his
hypothesis. There is thus in the deepest
facts of science indubitable evidence of the
existence of higher spiritual and physical
being interviewer with our physical lives,
and, if this be so, death is but a translation
into higher and more beautiful form of
life. But it must not be forgotten that the
same argument that applies to man applies
to the ant or fly that buzzes it's little day
and perishes. Why not? What is a man
more than fly, except in the matter of
avoirdupois ?-Francis Gerry Fairfield.