ect the animal the greater the
subordination of the parts. The cells of the human body are
incessantly dying, being borne off and replaced. The epidermis or
scarf skin is made of millions of insensible scales, consisting of
former cells which have died in order with their dead bodies to
build this guardian wall around the tender inner parts. Thus,
death, operating within the individual, seen in the light of
natural science, is a necessity, is purely a form of self
surrendering beneficence, is, indeed, but a hidden and indirect
process and completion of life.14

And is not the death of the total organism just as needful, just
as benignant, as the death of the component atoms? Is it not the
same law, still expressing the same meaning? The chemicalelements
wherein individuality is wanting, as Wagner says, die that
vegetable bodies may live. Individual vegetable bodies die that
new individuals of the species may live, and that they may supply
the conditions for animals to live. The individual beast dies that
other individuals of his species may live, and also for the good
of man. The plant lives by the elements and by other plants: the
animal lives by the elements, by the plants, and by other animals:
man lives and reigns by the service of the elements, of the
plants, and of the animals. The individual man dies if we may
trust the law of analogy for the good of his species, and that he
may furnish the conditions for the development of a higher life
elsewhere. It is quite obvious that, if individuals did not die,
new individuals could not live, because there would not be room.
It is also equally evident that, if individuals did not die, they
could never have any other life than the present. The foregoing
considerations, fathomed and appreciated, transform the
institution of death from caprice and punishment into necessity
and benignity. In the timid sentimentalist's view, death is
horrible. Nature unrolls the chart of organic existence, a
convulsed and lurid list of murderers, from the spider in the
window to the tiger in the jungle, from the shark at the bottom of
the sea to the eagle against the floor of the sky. As the perfumed
fop, in an interval of reflection, gazes at the spectacle through
his dainty eyeglass, the prospect swims in blood and glares with
the ghastly phosphorus of corruption, and he shudders with
sickness. In the philosophical naturalist's view, the dying
panorama is wholly different. Carnivorous viol