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.