AN INQUIRY INTO THE HISTORY OF OPINION CONCERNING DEATH, AND THE MENTAL STATE INDUCED BY ITS APPROACH. LECTURE I. WHEN Madame Roland was at the foot of the guillotine, she requested writing materials, and the delay of her execution for a few minutes, " that she might record the strange thoughts that were rising in her mind." Would that the request had been granted! That it was dictated by vanity or affectation, or that it could possibly be a mere contrivance to obtain a few more minutes of life, are suppositions totally inconsistent with the character of that pure and nobleminded woman; and the thoughts of such a mind in the near prospect of death would have been most welcome. Valuable, indeed, would be the genuine thoughts and feelings of any mind of a high order contemplating the known close approximation of that most momentous change, and especially if it take place under the ordinary circumstances of nature. We cannot help imagining that as man approaches the separation of his present from his anticipated future being, some light from that remote region must beam through the gloomy portal beneath which he advances, and cast its lustre not only on the transition and on what is beyond, but on what has already passed here; and show this world and the things of this world, under a new aspect and other colouring, approaching more closely to the reality than that in which they are generally contemplated. But towards anything of this kind, which would be a real revelation to the world on the subject of death, and partially of life also, we only possess and we can only hope for, approximation. It is not a |