In some instances the patient himself is the first to discover, and this from his own internal feelings, that he is about to die, and he announces the fact calmly, and for the most part without alarm, to those about him. Although a fear of death in itself, or for one’s own sake, is rare and exceptional, the last moments of too many are made miserable by solicitude for those they will leave behind, and their end is often one of great _mental_ anguish. “Such have clung to life anxiously, painfully, but they were not influenced so much by a love of life for its own sake, as by the distressing prospect of leaving children, dependent upon them, to the mercy of the world, deprived of their parental care.”[25] * * * * * In some dying persons consciousness and the intellect remain perfect to the last. The cases in which this is observed will be found to agree in the fact that the brain is correspondently unimpaired; they are for the most part chronic diseases of the chest and abdomen. If the character of the dying person is naturally strong, the state of his mind at the approach of death will generally be influenced by it. Of those who retain consciousness and intellect, the majority die thinking and acting in accordance with the influences that have been exerted upon them in previous life, by education and example: and with those which may be then brought to bear upon them, towards and at its close. More often some delirium is present. The delirium of the dying is often of a most interesting character, and according to Dr. Symonds resembles dreaming more than any form of derangement. The ideas are derived less from present perceptions than in insanity, and yet are more suggested by external circumstances than in the delirium of fever and phrenitis.[26] Such delirium is generally shown in quiet talkativeness, which becomes later on a low muttering. In some the mind is occupied on the events of childhood and early life, but when the delirium is somewhat more active, the conceptions of the dying man are generally derived from subjects, which, either in his speculative pursuits or in the business of life, have principally occupied his thoughts.[27] Lord Tenterden, as he approached his end, became delirious and talked very incoherently. Afterwards he seemed to recover his composure, and raising his head from his pillow, he was heard to say in a slow and solemn tone, as when he used to conclude his summing up, in cases of great importance, “And, now, Gentlemen of the Jury, you will consider of your verdict.” These were his last words; when he had uttered them, his head sunk down, and in a few minutes he expired without a groan.[28] And the last words of Dr. Armstrong were addressed to an imaginary patient, upon whom he was impressing the necessity of attention to the state of the digestive organs.