deplorable, yet the prospect in one's last moments of falling into the hands of professionals is even worse, and adds a new terror to dissolution. It is at any rate a consolation to know that whatever pains and torments of illness may have preceded, they generally pass away before the end; and notwithstanding such current expressions as 'death-agonies,' 'last struggle,' and so forth, the hour of death itself is mercifully calm and peaceful. Walt Whitman, who, in his hospital labors in the American Civil War, must have been present at a vast number of deathbeds, has recorded that in the great majority of cases the end comes quite simply, as an ordinary event of the day, "like having your breakfast." "Death is no more painful than birth," says Dr. Edward Clark in his book on Visions: a Study of False Sight;1 and most doctors will agree to the general truth of this expression.

There is a certain sacredness in Death, which should surely be respected. There is too, we may say, in most cases, a sure instinct which comes to the patient of what is impending and of what is needed; and every effort should be made to secure to the sufferer a quiet period during which he may effect the passage, for himself, disturbed as little as possible by the grief of friends or the interferences of attendants.

1 See Carrington and Meader on Death: its Causes and Phenomena, p. 300.

II. PSYCHICAL

We may now discuss the subject in hand somewhat more from the psychical side. Not that in these matters the physical and the psychical can ever be completely dissociated, but that having in the preceding section leaned more to the physical side it may be convenient now to lean rather to the psychical.

And there is certainly an advantage herenamely, that from this side we may not unreasonably say that the art of dying can be practised: it is really possible to approach or even perhaps to pass through Death on the mental plane, by voluntary effort. Most people regard the loss of ordinary consciousness (apart from sleep) with something like terror and horror. The best way to dispel that fear is to walk through the gate oneself every day-to divest oneself of that consciousness, and, mentally speaking, to die from time to time. Then one may get accustomed to it.

Of all the hard facts of Science: as that fire will burn, that water will freeze, that the earth spins on its axis, and so forth, I know of none more solid and fundamental than the fact that if you inhibit thought (and persevere) you come at length to a region of consciousness below or behind thought, and different from ordinary thought in its nature and character-a consciousness of quasi-universal quality, and a realization of an altogether vaster self than that to which

we are accustomed. And since the ordinary consciousness, with which we are concerned in ordinary life, is before all things founded on the little local self, and is in fact self-consciousness in the little local sense, it follows that to pass out of that is to die to the ordinary self and the ordinary world.

It is to die in the ordinary sense, but in another sense it is to wake up and find that the 'I,' one's real, most intimate self, pervades the universe and all other beings-that the mountains and the sea and the stars are a part of one's body and that one's soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures. Yes, far closer than before. It is to be assured of an indestructible immortal life and of a joy immense and inexpressible-"to drink of the deep well of rest and joy, and sit with all the Gods in Paradise."

So great, so splendid is this experience, that it may be said that all minor questions and doubts fall away in face of it; and certain it is that in thousands and thousands of cases the fact of its having come even once to a man has completely revolutionized his subsequent life and outlook on the world.

Of exactly how this inhibition of Thought may be practised, and of all its collateral results and implications it would be out of place to speak now. Sufficient at present to say that with the

1 Reference may be made to the Upanishads ("Sacred books of the East," vols. i. and xv.); to the Bhagavat Gita; to R. M.

completion of this inhibition, and the realization of the consequent change of consciousness-even if it be only for a time-the ordinary mental self, with all its worries, cares, limitations, imperfections, and so forth, falls completely off, and lies (for the time) like a thing dead; while the real man practically passes onward into another state of being.

To experience all this with any degree of fulness, is to know that you have passed through Death; because whatever destruction physical death may bring to your local senses and faculties, you know that it will not affect that deeper Self. I mean that having already become aware of your real self as pervading the life of other creatures, and moving in other bodies than your so-called own, it clearly does not so very much matter whether the one body remains or passes. It may make a difference certainly, but not a fatal or insuperable difference." The vast ocean of the consciousness into which you have been admitted will not be profoundly affected, even by the abstraction of a pearl-shell from its shore.

We have spoken of the Protozoa more than once in these connections; and it has been said that the Protozoa have been considered immortal because, though they divide into separate cells or organisms, the life remains continuous; and

Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness (Purdy Publishing Co., Chicago); to the Raja Yoga Lectures, by Vivekananda (New York, 1899); to the Ancient Wisdom, by Annie Besant; The Art of Creation, and ▲ Visit to a Gnani, by E. Carpenter; and to many other works, of course.

because though some of the descendant cells may die yet the life goes on-so that even in the hundredth generation the self or ego of a particular cell may be identical with that of the first parent. And in the case we are considering we have something similar, for when the common life of souls is once recognized and experienced, it is clear that nothing can destroy it. It simply passes from one form to another. And we may perhaps say that as the Protozoa attain to a kind of immortality below death, or prior to its appearance in the world, so the emancipated or freed soul attains to immortality above and beyond death-passing over death, in fact, as a mere detail in its career.

I say, this heart and kernel of a great and immortal self, this consciousness of a powerful and continuing life within, is there-however deeply it may be buried-within each person; and its discovery is open to everyone who will truly and persistently seek for it. And I say that I regard the discovery of this experience— with its accompanying sense of rest, content, expansion, power, joy, and even omniscience and immensity as the most fundamental and important fact hitherto of human knowledge and scientific inquiry, and one verified and corroborated by thousands and even millions of human kind. Doubtless, as already suggested, questions may arise and will arise as to the exact nature of this continuing life, its exact relation to the local personal consciousness, as well as to what