Part 13

LXIX. But notwithstanding that in such accusations, on account of their being so frequently ill-founded, the hazard of innocence being oppressed by the anguish of the torture becomes greater than in other cases; still the same danger subsists, though not in so great a degree, with respect to all those who are falsely accused of any other serious crimes. I mean, that if any one from want of fortitude, confesses in the torture the crime of witchcraft, which he is quite innocent of, he may in the same manner, and by the same means, be brought to confess himself guilty of a murder, a sacrilege, a robbery, or any other great offence he never committed. Thus the experience of the learned Jesuit, with respect to the fallibility of the torture in the examination into the truth of witchcraft; identifies and proves its fallibility, in the inquiry into the certainty, of whether any other person has been guilty of a crime he stands accused of.

PARADOX VII.

_It should be the Duty of Magistrates, to oblige every individual in a state to earn his own living._

LXX. This was one of the laws of the most prudent Solon; and it was so inviolably observed in Athens, that Athenæus tells us, the two philosophers Asclepiades and Menedemus, were convened before the Areopagus, to give an account how they got their living; and they obviated the charge that had been brought against them, of leading an idle life, and having no visible means of subsistence; by proving, that they earned two drachmas every night, by grinding in, or turning a horse-mill; and Herodotus says, that before the days of Solon, this same law had been established in Egypt by King Amasis.

LXXI. There is no doubt, but the same establishment would be useful in all states. Why do I say useful? It would be laudable also, and of the utmost importance. By a careful examination into, and attention to this matter, communities would be freed from the nuisance of great numbers of drones, and poisonous reptiles. There is scarce a populous town or city, where you don’t see great numbers of people, who without any estate or income, and without employing themselves in any honest or useful occupation, live well in their houses, and appear genteelly and handsomely dressed in the streets. And what are the funds by which they support all this? why some of them support themselves, by thefts and robberies; others by the vile practice, of prostituting the beauty of their wives for hire; others by money they borrow of a thousand people, without any intention of ever paying it; others by tricks and cheats of various kinds, with which they impose upon innocent and unguarded people; and indeed, if the mask was to be taken off from all those who are said to live by their ingenuity, it would be found, that almost all of them, live by foul practices and roguery; and the mask would be taken off, by adopting the before proposed examination and enquiry, and by providing, and rigorously executing punishments proportioned to such evils, the body politic, would be purged and cleansed from an infinite number of vicious humours.

PARADOX VIII.

_A great part of what is expended in Alms, is not only thrown away, but does mischief._

LXXII. The following sentence of King David’s is a remarkable one; _Blessed is he who exercises his attention and his understanding, for the relief of the poor and the needy._ Beatus qui intelligit super egenum, et pauperem.—He does not say, blessed is he who to succour the poor, exercises his love, his compassion, or his charity, but blessed is he who exercises his attention or understanding on this object. There is doubtless the appearance of a mystery in this, but the mystery is, that alms, unless distributed with understanding, discretion, and judgment, do no good.

LXXIII. A hand that is precipitate in giving, such a one for example, as Claudian represents that of Probus to have been,

_Præceps illa manus fluvios superabat Ibèros_ _Aurea dona vomens_—

who relieved many poor, but at the same time supported many people in idleness; and such conduct not only supports, but it creates or breeds up many such, for wherever alms are distributed copiously and without discretion, there will be found many people, who without this assistance would betake themselves to work to procure themselves a livelihood, who at present live idly, and omit their own industry, which they are enabled to do, at the expence, and by the profusion of others. The evils that result to a state from such imprudent dispensations, are sufficiently serious; it loses by this means, the work of a great many useful hands, and the numbers of the indolent, vicious, and profligate, are greatly increased by it.

LXXIV. It is said of a man who distributes great quantities of alms, that he gives with both hands; but he should remember, that according to the directions of our Lord and Saviour, he should only give with one; he says, when you dispense alms, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does: _te autem faciente eleemosynam, nesciat sinistra tua quid faciat dextra tua_. This implies, that it is with the right hand only that alms should be given. If I am told that I dwell too much on the literal meaning of the word, I answer it was never my intention to do so; for I am inclined to think, there is a profound implied sentiment couched under this description. It is the constant stile of holy writ, to use the expression right hand, to symbolize or define good works, and the expression left hand to signify the contrary; and hence it is, that in many parts of it, when it speaks of the hand of God, it never mentions it in an emphatical manner, without the addition of the adverb right, which is used to convey an idea, that the operations of God are just and holy. Christ then requires, that alms should be given with the right hand, by which expression, we may suppose he meant to signify, that there are good and bad alms, and that he approves the first, and condemns the others; and also to prohibit our giving with both hands, for that this would be proceeding without choice or distinction, and would also confound the good with the bad.

LXXV. I know some divines are of opinion, that we should bellow our charity, and that it is not incumbent on us to examine scrupulously into the necessities of those we bestow it on; but this is no argument why a state should not take proper precautions, to prevent those from receiving the benefit of charitable christian donations, who ought to get their living by their labour, and to exclude all such from being partakers of this benevolence, who surrender themselves up to indolence, and a voluntary and vicious state of poverty.

PARADOX IX.

_Death should not be dreaded, on account of what there is simply in the thing itself, or on account of what a person feels at that crisis._

LXXVI. There is a fear of death, which is well founded and salutary; another, which is ill founded and pernicious; and another, which ought to be indifferent, because it is natural, and which only by being carried to too great an excess can become vicious. He fears death reasonably and profitably, who contemplates it as a transition from hence to eternity; he fears it naturally, who considers it as the termination of his life; and he fears it unreasonably, who viewing it simply with regard to what there is in the thing itself, abstracted from all that has preceded, and all that is to follow it, supposes that it will be attended with excessive pain.

LXXVII. This apprehension, although it is very common both among the ignorant and the learned, I look upon to be chimerical and vain, and to have no foundation in truth, therefore, I shall not scruple placing it in the catalogue of vulgar errors. I don’t mean to treat here, of the pains incident to diseases which dispose or lead to death, which without doubt are often very severe; but I only mean to enquire or examine, whether it is probable we feel any, or any very sensible pain, at that moment when the soul is separated from the body. It is generally thought, that at that instant, a more intense pain is felt, than can be produced by all the torments a man is capable of inventing. Authors exaggerate this pain in books, orators in pulpits, and all sorts of people in conversation, and reason upon it in the following manner. If, say they, tearing a nail from the finger, or a finger from the hand, produces a pain so acute, that a man is scarce able to endure it, what must he feel, or how will he be able to bear that which tears the soul from the body? Here the strict union between these parts is described in the most feeling manner, in order to enhance or aggravate the sensation that must be experienced at their separation; and they compare it to the final parting of two fast or fond friends, who have lived long and happily together; or to two integrant parts of an animated body, the division of which is the more painful, the more firmly and intimately they are united together. To heighten this description, they add, that this pain pervades all, and every one of the parts of the human body, both internal and external, because the soul is torn equally from them all alike; which is a universality, that cannot exist in any other pain, because he who is roasted alive, or thrown into a great fire, does not feel pain in his entrails, at the time his external parts begin to scorch: agreeable to this mode of reasoning, they conclude, that the pain which is felt at the moment of death, is enormous, beyond all imagination and description.

LXXVIII. I see this matter in quite a different light, and look upon all this aggravated degree of pain to be imaginary, and consider the reasoning by which the existence of it is attempted to be proved, as fallacious and delusive. It is confounding our ideas of objects, to suppose that the division of integral parts, is analogous to the separation of the soul from the body. The pain in the first instance, consists in the forcibly breaking their connexions, or in the first shocks of the violence, which disposes to their disunion. In the separation of the soul from the body, there is no insertion of material fibres to be torn out by the roots, nor any division to be made of connected substantial parts. From whence then can bodily pain be derived?

LXXIX. The using the same words promiscuously, causes mankind to run into infinite errors, and especially if the application of them is made to things that are fundamentally very different. The expression _tearing the soul from the body_, fascinates or misleads many people in the business we are now treating of; the phrase should be understood in a figurative sense, and we are apt to construe it in a strict or literal one. In consequence of which, as we know we can’t tear from our bodies, the most minute shred, without feeling great pain, or even extract any foreign substance, that has been violently introduced into, and sticks in any part of our frame, without being liable to the same sensation; led away then and betrayed by the sound of the expression, we are apt to imagine, that something similar happens in the separation of the soul from the body; but the soul is a pure spirit, that can neither adhere, or be made to adhere to any body whatever, nor can it be bound to it by ligatures, nor united with it by fibres, nor fixed to it by any kind of fastening, nor intangled with it by any kind of roots or insertions; and finally, the mode of its union to the body, is incomprehensible to all our philosophy or understanding; and consequently, a description of its disunion cannot be given in the words of any language. There is no doubt, but the term _tearing from_ is metaphorical; and that we might with less impropriety, although we never can with propriety, in describing the separation of the soul from the body, say, that it evaporated off, it was dissipated, or that it had been exhaled, than that it had been torn away; for its disunion from the body, is performed by a movement that is supremely insensible, because on the part of the corporeal substance, there is not the least resistance made to its flying off. Vapours are continually exhaling from every part of our bodies, without giving us the least pain. And why is this? Why it is, because that on account of their thinness and delicacy, they find no opposition in their passage, either from the solids, or the pores of the skin. What obstruction then can you suppose the soul meets with, in its exit from the body, which is infinitely more subtil and thin, than the finest vapours?

LXXX. Let us contemplate the thing in another point of view; and admit that the soul at the time of its being snatched away from the body, caused a violent shock, like that of tearing to pieces all the entrails, and inverting the whole interior organization. I say that even supposing this, the pain that it would occasion would be very slight, or next to nothing; and the reason is, because that in those ultimate stages of life, all the faculties are so extremely languid, and the operations of nature so feeble and remiss, as hardly to be perceived; and the sensation of pain, which is one of those faculties, being in the same state with the others, and the agent which is to stimulate them being equally feeble with the rest; although in the time of vigour, it was capable of exerting a force that had the power of producing great pain, in the present state of things, it is not capable of giving a shock that can excite any very acute sensation, nor if it was, is the subject it is exercised upon capable of perceiving, or being violently affected by it.

LXXXI. I am inclined to think, that a few moments before death, there comes on a kind of half death, or stupor, that is something like a lethargy or swooning, and that in this interval, there remains no kind of recollection or reflexion; and it is probable, that the morning of our life, and the evening of our death, are preceded by a sort of crepuscules or twilight, which brighten and grow clearer as the day of our life comes on, and which darken and grow more obscure, as the total night of our death draws near.

LXXXII. Hitherto we have been treating of natural deaths; but violent deaths, which do not happen till three or four days after receiving the injury that occasions them, may be considered to come under the description of natural ones; as we may suppose those people die in the same way, that those do who are carried off by an acute disease.

LXXXIII. Sudden violent deaths, which are so much dreaded, are the least painful of all; and indeed I was about to say, that people in such cases, hardly feel any pain at all, or at most but an instantaneous one; because the operation of the cause which induces them, takes away in a moment, all sense of feeling. It is well known, that those who have fallen from a great height, and have lain a considerable time afterwards as if they were dead, have, when they came to themselves, affirmed, they did not feel the blow they received upon coming to the ground. The great Chancellor Bacon, tells a story of a gentleman who was very desirous of knowing what people felt who were hanged, and in order to be satisfied about it, determined to make an experiment of the thing on himself. For this purpose, he fastened a rope to the cieling of a room, in which rope he made a noose, and after adjusting it to a proper length, he stood upon a stool, and fixed the nooze round his neck, in the expectation, that after suffering himself to be suspended, he should be able to recover the stool again; but the good gentleman was a little out in his calculation; for if it had not been for a friend who was present, to whom he had communicated what he intended to do, and who cut the rope in time, the experimental philosopher had been as dead as if he had been executed by the hands of the hangman. The account he gave of this matter was, that from the moment his body became suspended by the rope, he lost all sense and recollection; that he had not the least remembrance of the stool, or apprehension of the danger he was in, nor even any sensation of pain, arising from the suffocation that was brought on.

LXXXIV. This, I firmly believe, is what happens to all those who are executed by the hands of justice, whether they are hanged, strangled by the bow-string, or beheaded; and in general, to all those who suffer violent deaths that are as sudden as these are; for they can only feel a momentary or instantaneous pain, and the instant they receive the fatal blow, they are from that time, to the separation of the soul from the body, mere effigies of men, and have no more sensation of pain, than stocks or stones; and notwithstanding, that between the intermediate space of their receiving the blow, or in case they are hanged, of being turned off, they are seen to make some convulsive motions, these motions are merely mechanical, and are by no means governed by the will, or directed by reason.

LXXXV. We will not exempt, as coming under this general rule, even those who are burnt alive. This is a sort of punishment, which strikes all the world with extreme horror, because they generally conceive, that from the instant a person who is executed in this way, is thrown into the fire, to the time of his resigning his last breath, he feels the excruciating torments of the fire. But I am of opinion, that he feels nothing after the first minute that he is committed to the flames; nor can I conceive, that his perception of pain can endure even so long as that.

LXXXVI. I think I have tolerably well proved, what I at first asserted; but as the reader may object, that this paradox ought to have been classed among physical matters, instead of among moral and political ones, I will endeavour now, to remove this objection; which I hope I shall be able to do, notwithstanding the decadence of the faculties, and the want of sensation at the moment of death, are properer objects for philosophical, than moral speculations. I shall begin with observing, that we ought to distinguish between the matter of the proof, and the essence of the subject we are handling. The subject in the present case, consists in a theoretical proposition, that death with respect to what there is simply and merely in the thing itself, ought not to be feared, or that the fear of death, considered in this manner, is not reasonable or well-founded; now thus considered, the question is purely a moral one, because it directly combats an inordinate passion of the soul. The proofs of the truth of the proposition, appertain to philosophy; but this is what we see happen every day with regard to other moral questions. When the question is, whether a marriage should be dissolved on account of imbecility, all the proofs in the trial are purely physical, &c.

LXXXVII. But the question more immediately appertains to morality, on account of the end for which I proposed it, than it does with respect to its own proper matter; for this end is a point of morality of the most serious importance. There is great necessity for banishing this panic terror, and this dismal apprehension of the tormenting pains of death. It is very common to see dying people (and I speak of what I have known and experienced myself) extremely distressed by this idea, not so much on account of the dread of the exquisite pain itself, as on account of the consequences that may result from it. They figure to themselves, that the pains which terminate this mortal life, are so extremely intense, that they will occasion them to lose all patience, and prevent their submitting themselves to the will of Providence with the christian resignation they ought; and are also apprehensive, that it would cause them to break out into furious acts of desperation. This anxiety has such an effect on them, that it prevents the operation of those christian dispositions, that should accompany a man in his last moments, and which are so necessary to promote his dying a good death; and besides this, they even put him in danger of distrusting the Divine Goodness at so critical a period. I have seen many who were in their perfect senses, and who had been people of good and exemplary lives, who have been greatly distressed by this idea;

_O genus attonitum gelidæ formidine mortis!_

LXXXVIII. I suppose that sentence of St. Paul’s, _Fidelis autem Deus est, qui non patietur vos tentari supra id quod potestis_, in English, _God is good and just, and will not suffer you to be tried or tempted beyond your strength_, would be an excellent antidote for this malady. The thinking otherwise of the Deity, would not be contemplating him, as a most merciful father, nor as a just God, but considering him as a cruel tyrant, who at the moment on which your eternal happiness depends, should afflict you so severely, as to cause you to commit acts of desperation. What faith, and the light of natural reason teaches us, is, that his goodness never permits the rigour of the trial, to exceed the power of the soul to contend with and resist it; and as I observed before, this reflexion is an excellent antidote against the malady we have been speaking of; but with all this, if it is not assisted and enforced by the persuasive eloquence of an able friend, or a good pastoral director, it is apt to lose some of its efficacy, and not to quiet the fluctuations of the mind so thoroughly as could be wished, and especially if not attended to in time; and I therefore think that it would be necessary, whether sick or well, for all people to remain in a firm persuasion, that these excruciating pains in the article of death are imaginary.

_Appendix to the foregoing._

LXXXIX. I have sometimes observed, that those who attend on dying people have been much dejected upon finding them in their last moments, make some very irregular and extraordinary motions, and have been afraid and believed that those agitations, had proceeded from some impatience that had seized them. But let them not be uneasy on this account; because it is most likely, that these motions are merely mechanical; and that in case they should not be so, there is no mischief to be apprehended from them; for in that proximate state to death, if people are not deprived of their senses, the use of their reason is so feeble, or so confused, that very little, if any, of that free will can be exercised by them which is necessary to constitute sin, or at least any serious sin; for no intoxicated man, nor any one at the instant he awakes from a profound sleep, can be in a more stunned or stupified state, than a dying person at such a crisis.

XC. Finally, both with respect to the matter of this appendix, as well as with regard to that of the subject of this Essay, I shall proceed to give a last, and most efficacious consolation, against the apprehension, that the extreme pains of death are likely to endanger the loss of people’s souls; for admitting that those pains were real, and as severe as they are represented to be, is there any danger that the dying person who is oppressed by them, should fall into the serious sin of impatience, or that he should incur the guilt of any other mortal crime? To this, I resolutely answer that he could not; for the same reasoning that states the pain to be so insufferably intense, removes all the hazard of sinning, because it must disturb the understanding to such a degree, as to deprive a man of all free will. This is a consequence resulting from all passions that are excessively violent, as is agreed by all philosophers and theologians. Virgil, who had great judgment and penetration in these matters, represents Chorœbus, who had been totally deprived of his senses by grief for the imprisonment of his beloved Cassandra, as divested of all free will or reflexion also, in the following lines:

_Non tulit hanc speciem furiatâ mente Chorœbus,_ _Et sese medium injecit moriturus in agmen._

PARADOX X.