The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-19
THE DREAD OF DEATH.
A Natural Feeling of Every Healthy
Person.
London Snectator.

London Spectator.
The inaugural address delivered by Dr.
Goodhart at the opening session of the
reported in last weeks Lancet, contains
very interesting passage dealing with the
dread of death: Dr. Goodhart's view, and
the dread of death which is experienced
py almost all men and women is per Sc
.ired of saying." he tells us because bee /
an sure il is as true as it is comforting,
although in opposition to the general be-
.ief that death has no terrors for the sick
man. To the living and healthy man it is
quite otherwise, but the sick man upon
whom Death lays his hand pales gently
who is we'll breads death so keenly, if he
$, OF nature to reflect on the matter at
all, in obedience to natural physical in
stinct 1t is the very law of his being to
i've, and in obedience to that law he re-
ssts not only death but the very thought
1f death He sets himself against it heart
and soul and recoils from it by a natural
impulse. His power of WILL inspired by
such emotions as love for others, patriot
come the dread of death and triumph over
the need to live, but the fact that there
are plenty of mental impulses too strong
for the dread of death does not alter the
fact that as long as we are capable of liV-
ing we desire to live, and desire it in
tensely. AS rule when men do not dread
to it, not in obedience to any higher call,
but merely because it has no terrors for
them them, we ri may be sure that they are
ample, meet death half way. Their talk is,
or was when Mr.. Stevenson visited them,
were turned to the grave. But the Face
was rapidly dying out. Their willingness
to die and the lack of any dislike to death
were signs of the fate that was overtaking
them: The man who can say, Though 1
dread death like other men, l will not fear
to undergo 1T for great cause is hero.
He who says truly, Death may come when
it will, mind it no more than the thought
of entering another ROOM, may not be i'll
in mind, but he can hardly be sane of body.
1t may seem at first sight if this uni
versal dread of death in healthy and normal
human beings living under normal condi-
tons involved certain divine cruelty. Why
should men be tortured by the dread of
death since death is inevitable? Could not
God have spared us that intolerable and
purpOselesS agony? That Is a not unnatural
questioning of the rebellious spirit. Yet a
little reflection will show that it is very
absurd criticism of the ways of God toward
that we shall remain on earth and live our
appointed lives there, 1t is essential that
mankind should feel the dread Of death.
Without the dread the world could hardly
remain peopled. The dread of death is to
the soul what the law of gravity is to the
body. 1t anchors US to the earth. Without
that dread to weigh US down and keep us
to the globe, half mankind would be driven
by curiosity by the love of change. by the
ness and safety to push open the closed
door and see what is beyond. Children and
few. very happy and easily pleased peo-
plore further, and that they were perfectly
content with things as they are.
"Your chilly stars can forego,
This kind warm earth is all l know.
That, however, would only be the aspira-
ton of the few; with the mass of mankind
it would certainly be otherwise. We know
that among the cultivated men and women
of the later Roman empire suicide became
a sort of moral epidemic. The fashionable
Stole doctrines, acting on d race which had
begun to degenerate and decline and to
lose its grip on life. killed the dread of
death, and men left the world for whim,
''only on the thought to do the same thing
over and over again." The Christian doc
trine that self slaughter is sin did not
affect them and the notion that there is
something base in quitting ones post was
not horn