Life and Death

Few ideas reach into every kind of book in the Harvard Classics the way life and death do. The physician asks what keeps the heart beating. The chemist asks what the breath consumes. The naturalist asks why whole species and peoples vanish. The philosopher asks whether death is an evil, the moralist how a man should prepare for it, the theologian what lies beyond it, and the poet how the living are to bear their dead. Scripture and Stoic, epic and ballad, plague chronicle and battlefield report all return to the same fact: whatever lives must die. They also return to the same uncertainty about what that fact means. The idea is great for these books because every serious account of how to live is, implicitly or openly, an account of how to die.

The oldest definition in these volumes is the Phaedo’s: death is the separation of soul from body¹. On this view it is a release, and it would be absurd for a philosopher who studies dying to repine when it arrives². The Buddhist texts reach a similar indifference by a different road. Death is merely the dissolution of the constituent Groups, and to suppose that some living entity dies is error³. Marcus Aurelius leaves the question open. Death is either dispersion, annihilation or change⁴, a cessation of sense impressions and appetites⁵.

The physicians and chemists describe the same event from outside. Harvey makes the heart the beginning and foundation of life, first to exist and source of all motion^6,7. He watches the dying heart stop by stages, life lingering longest in the right auricle⁸, and he revives a dead pigeon’s heart with a warmed finger⁹. For him death is corruption through lack of heat¹⁰. Faraday carries the analogy further: respiration is a slow combustion of carbon, and the life of man and the burning taper are related literally, not only poetically^11,12. Pasteur then unsettles any simple equation of life with breath. Ferments are beings able to live without free oxygen, so fermentation is “life without air”^13,14. His vibrios even raise the question whether a motionless organism is dead or only waiting to revive¹⁵. Darwin extends mortality from the individual to the kind. Rarity is the precursor of extinction, as sickness is of death^16,17. Natural selection works through life and death themselves¹⁸, and aboriginal peoples dwindle before his eyes¹⁹. Confucius alone declines the whole inquiry: we do not understand life, so how can we know death²⁰?

That death is universal is the common ground of all the books, and they state it most memorably as a leveller. In Job one man dies at ease and another in bitterness, and both lie alike with the worm²¹. The Psalmist sees wise and fool perish together²². Marcus Aurelius observes that Alexander and his groom came by death to the same state²³, and he recites the famous dead until the litany itself becomes the argument²⁴. The Thousand and One Nights sets this theme in stone, in inscriptions telling of kings whose armies and treasure could not buy one more day^25,26. Hamlet follows Alexander’s dust to a beer-barrel²⁷, and Gray finds that the paths of glory lead but to the grave²⁸.

The brevity of life is a second constant. Job’s days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle²⁹, and the Psalmist measures life in handbreadths³⁰. Macbeth calls it a brief candle and a tale told by an idiot³¹. Prospero says our little life is rounded with a sleep³². For Pascal, men are prisoners condemned to death awaiting their turn³³. A third constant is that the hour is hidden. The Buddhist messengers of age, sickness and the corpse warn every man³⁴. Thomas à Kempis bids us live always in expectation³⁵, and Montaigne collects the odd sudden deaths of kings and of his own brother³⁶. Yet the same facts can be read as nature’s order rather than a threat. Epictetus treats death as a return of the elements to their kindred, fire to fire and earth to earth³⁷. Gertrude tells Hamlet that all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity³⁸.

The central dispute is whether death is an evil. Socrates opens it with a confession of ignorance. To fear death is to pretend to know what no one knows, since it may be the greatest good³⁹. Death is a gain either way, whether it is dreamless sleep or a journey to another world⁴⁰, and no evil can happen to a good man⁴¹. The Stoics turn this suspended judgment into doctrine. Death is an operation of nature, and fear of it is childish⁴². It is a mystery like generation⁴³. One should leave life cheerfully, like a guest leaving a festival⁴⁴. Montaigne joins them on Epicurean as well as Stoic grounds, holding that death concerns neither the living nor the dead⁴⁵, and Marcus offers the same dilemma: either no sensation and so no harm, or a different life⁴⁶.

Against this calm stand dissenting voices. Homer’s Achilles would rather be a hireling among the living than rule all the dead⁴⁷. Browne is ashamed rather than afraid of death, because it disfigures us⁴⁸, and Burke calls death the king of terrors⁴⁹. Pascal attacks the pagan position at its root. Socrates and Seneca wrongly take death as natural, when it is the penalty of sin⁵⁰, and death is horrible without Christ though holy in him⁵¹. Between these camps lies a large body of testimony from sufferers who long for death as relief. Job digs for it like treasure⁵², Burns calls it the poor man’s dearest friend⁵³, and Keats is half in love with easeful Death⁵⁴. Such passages concede the evil of life rather than prove the goodness of death.

The fear of death and its remedies form a long modern conversation. Bacon thinks the pomp of death frightens more than death itself⁵⁵, and Montaigne agrees that the deathbed’s trappings terrify⁵⁶. Rousseau notes that animals and primitive men neither foresee nor fear it⁵⁷. The chief ancient cure is meditation. Epictetus would keep death daily in view so as never to think mean thoughts⁵⁸. Marcus warns that what we should fear is not that life must end but that we never began to live according to nature⁵⁹. Montaigne, taking his title from Cicero’s tradition, makes philosophizing a learning to die, and wants death to find him planting his garden^60,61. Walton’s Donne carries the discipline to its limit, sitting in his winding-sheet for a portrait he kept by his bed⁶². Bacon dissents, thinking the Stoics made death more fearful by preparing for it so much⁶³.

Pascal sees most men taking the opposite course. Unable to cure death, they resolve not to think of it, and diversion leads them unconsciously to the precipice^64,65. Aeschylus’ Prometheus had already boasted of giving men blind hopes to stop them contemplating death⁶⁶. Pascal also scorns Montaigne’s conception of dying as cowardly and effeminate beside a Christian death⁶⁷. For the Christian writers, faith rather than reason defeats fear. Paul taunts death, asking where its sting is⁶⁸, and Luther says the believer grows fearless through Christ’s life⁶⁹. Yet Bunyan’s Christian, for all his faith, sinks in horror in the river⁷⁰. The Stoic and the Christian do share one conviction, that fear of death is the root of servility. Epictetus says so outright⁷¹. More, warned that the prince’s anger is death, replies only that he dies today and the Duke tomorrow⁷².

What makes a death timely? Cicero answers for the ancients that the old die as ripe fruit falls, while the young are torn away by violence⁷³. Old age is the last act of the drama, and nature sets its limit⁷⁴. Marcus uses the same image of an actor dismissed⁷⁵. The elegists cannot accept this proportion. Milton’s Fury slits the thin-spun life before fame is reaped⁷⁶, and Lamb puzzles that infants die while the old linger⁷⁷. Leigh Hunt finds a strange consolation in a dead child fixed forever as an image of innocence⁷⁸. The Greeks hold that no life can be called blest before its end⁷⁹. Montaigne sharpens this into the claim that death is the hardest act, when masks fall⁸⁰, and Edgar in King Lear compresses the doctrine into “ripeness is all”⁸¹. On the preference between sudden and prepared death the books divide sharply. Caesar wished for a sudden end⁸², while à Kempis and Augustine dread being taken unprepared^83,84.

Suicide tests every position. Epictetus holds that the door stands open, and that one may leave like a child quitting a game grown grievous⁸⁵. Yet he also restrains rash young men who would go before God’s signal⁸⁶. Pliny records with admiration the deliberate deaths of incurable men^87,88, and More’s Utopian priests counsel such endings⁸⁹. Plutarch prefers Demosthenes’ chosen poison to Cicero’s pitiable murder⁹⁰. The Phaedo forbids self-slaughter even to the philosopher who is willing to die⁹¹. Christian writers add the duty owed to the giver of life. Hamlet laments the canon against self-slaughter⁹², Bunyan’s Hopeful argues that suicide kills body and soul⁹³, and Milton’s Adam refutes Eve’s plan⁹⁴. Kant gives the rational form of the prohibition: a maxim of self-love that would destroy life contradicts itself as a universal law⁹⁵. Literature meanwhile multiplies the deaths of grief and love, from Dido⁹⁶ to Goethe’s Clara⁹⁷. It also gives would-be suicides halted by the undiscovered country, as Voltaire reads Hamlet⁹⁸, or by Easter bells, as with Faust⁹⁹.

What follows death remains the most open question. Socrates argues that opposites generate opposites, so the living come from the dead¹⁰⁰. Yet he concedes that fear is reasonable for one who lacks proof¹⁰¹. Paul proclaims that in Christ all are made alive and death is the last enemy¹⁰². Donne, more boldly, says that death itself shall die¹⁰³. The Buddhist and Hindu texts seek not survival but release from the round of birth and death^104,105. Against all these the Hebrew voices doubt. Job asks whether a man who dies shall live again¹⁰⁶, and the Preacher says the dead know nothing¹⁰⁷. FitzGerald’s Omar and Swinburne give thanks, or shrug, that the dead never rise^108,109. Pascal states the alternatives starkly: annihilation or an angry God, with no knowledge to decide between them¹¹⁰. Homer and Virgil picture a third possibility, a shadowy existence of strengthless shades crowding Charon’s ferry^111,112.

The books are equally rich in the manner of particular deaths. Socrates dies so fearlessly that Phaedo thinks him blessed rather than pitiable¹¹³, and the poison’s chill is described without alarm¹¹⁴. The Buddha’s last words are that all constituents of being are transitory¹¹⁵. Bunyan’s pilgrims cross the river one by one, Valiant crying out to ask where death’s sting is¹¹⁶. Beowulf knows his days are done and orders his barrow¹¹⁷, and Hamlet’s last words are “the rest is silence”¹¹⁸.

The living, meanwhile, must mourn. Augustine loathed living yet feared dying after his friend’s death¹¹⁹. Marcus thinks mourning at tombs ridiculous¹²⁰. Wordsworth’s child refuses to count her dead siblings out of the family¹²¹. Funeral rites are urgent from the beginning, as Elpenor’s unburied ghost shows¹²², and Virgil calls them the last respect owed to shadows¹²³. Fame and offspring offer a lesser victory: seek glory before death, says Beowulf¹²⁴, and he who leaves issue does not die¹²⁵.

Finally, the books record mass and violent death. Manzoni’s plague-stricken Milan, with its carts of naked corpses, makes death degrading rather than solemn^126,127. Haskell finds Northern and Southern dead lying quiet together at Gettysburg¹²⁸. Dana finds death at sea the more solemn for having neither body nor grave¹²⁹. Milton gives Death a person, Sin’s monstrous son ever hungry for the world^130,131, and Coleridge sets Life-in-Death dicing beside him¹³².

Across these texts the questions shift without closing. The ancients ask chiefly whether death is an evil and answer with reason. The Christians ask what death is the penalty for and answer with faith. The moderns ask what life is, in the heart, the candle and the ferment. None of them settles what Socrates confessed he did not know.