Montaigne was one of the first among modern writers to oppose, by close argument, the general opinion of the painfulness of death; and he was followed in the last century with more eloquence, if with less argument, by Buffon.[8] “There is hardly any subject,” writes an amiable physician, “on which books afford us more impressive topics, than the consideration of death; and perhaps there is none less studied in its intimate details.... It might be expected that a scene through which we must all pass should excite a closer attention especially as _the physical process of death loses much of its horror on a near view_.”[9] Physicians, the clergy, and intelligent nurses--all, indeed, who are practically conversant with the dying--testify to the truth of this statement. Sir Henry Halford, towards the close of his medical career, and after opportunities of observation, such as have fallen to the lot of few physicians, expressed his surprise that of the great number to whom it had been his professional duty to have administered in the last hours of their lives, so few exhibited signs of severe suffering. Sir Benjamin Brodie, whose experience of death from surgical disease was second to none, states that, according to his observation, the mere act of dying is seldom, in any sense of the word, a very painful process.[10] And another distinguished surgeon, Mr. Savory, writing on the same subject, says, “Whatever may have been the amount of _previous_ suffering, we may fairly assume that, except in extreme cases, the actual process of dying is not one of intense agony, or indeed, for the most part, even of pain.”[11] Lastly, the great anatomist, Dr. William Hunter, bore his own dying testimony to the same effect. He retained his consciousness to the last, and just before he died he whispered to his friend, Dr. Combe, “If I had strength enough to hold a pen, I would write how easy and pleasant a thing it is to die.”[12] But of far greater weight than the observations and conclusions of medical men, however eminent, towards the determination of such a question, is the evidence of those who have been restored from the state of apparent death from drowning--a state which differs only from actual death in the possibility of reanimation under the influence of external treatment. And although the accounts given after recovery from drowning vary much, there are a number of well-attested cases which show, that in them at any rate, the loss of sensibility and consciousness has been painless, or at most attended with a feeling of oppression across the chest. The process of recovery, however, is often one of great bodily suffering.