_Mummy_. Well, you shall put the question to either of them from us. If man be unaware of the exact point of time when his vital functions are suspended in more or less degree by sleep, lethargy, syncope, or any other cause, why should he perceive the moment-when these same functions cease entirely; and not merely for a time, but for ever? Besides, how could there be an acute sensation at the time of death? Is death itself a sensation? When the faculty of sense is not only weakened and restricted, but so minimised that it may be termed non-existent, how could any one experience a lively sensation? Perhaps you think this very extinction of sensibility ought also to be an acute sensation? But it is not so. For you may notice that even sick people who die of very painful diseases compose themselves shortly before death, and rest in tranquillity; they are too enfeebled to suffer, and lose all sense of pain before they die. You may say this from us to whoever imagines it will be a painful effort to breathe his last. _Ruysch_. Such reasoning would perhaps satisfy the Epicureans, but not those people who regard the soul as essentially different from the body. I have hitherto been one of the latter, and now that I have heard the dead speak and sing I am more than ever disinclined to change my opinions. We consider death to be a separation of the soul and body, and to us it is incomprehensible how these two substances, so joined and agglutinated as to form one being, can be divided without great force and an inconceivable pang. _Mummy_. Tell me: is the spirit joined to the body by some nerve, muscle, or membrane which must be broken to enable it to escape? Or is it a member which has to be severed or violently wrenched away? Do you not see that the soul necessarily leaves the body when the latter becomes uninhabitable, and not because of any internal violence? Tell me also: were you sensible of the moment when the soul entered you, and was joined, or as you say agglutinated, to your body? If not, why should you expect to feel any violent sensation at its departure? Take my word for it, the departure of the soul is as quiet and imperceptible as its entrance. _Ruysch_. Then what is death, if it be not pain?