There is a certain sacredness in Death, which should surely be respected. There is too, we may say, in most cases, a sure instinct which comes to the patient of what is impending and of what is needed; and every effort should be made to secure to the sufferer a quiet period during which he may effect the passage, for himself, disturbed as little as possible by the grief of friends or the interferences of attendants. II. PSYCHICAL We may now discuss the subject in hand somewhat more from the psychical side. Not that in these matters the physical and the psychical can ever be completely dissociated, but that having in the preceding section leaned more to the physical side it may be convenient now to lean rather to the psychical. And there is certainly an advantage here—namely, that from this side we may not unreasonably say that the art of dying _can_ be practised: it is really possible to approach or even perhaps to pass through Death on the mental plane, by voluntary effort. Most people regard the loss of ordinary consciousness (apart from sleep) with something like terror and horror. The best way to dispel that fear is to walk through the gate oneself every day—to divest oneself of that consciousness, and, mentally speaking, to die from time to time. Then one may get accustomed to it. Of all the hard facts of Science: as that fire will burn, that water will freeze, that the earth spins on its axis, and so forth, I know of none more solid and fundamental than the fact that if you inhibit thought (and persevere) you come at length to a region of consciousness below or behind thought, and different from ordinary thought in its nature and character—a consciousness of quasi-universal quality, and a realization of an altogether vaster self than that to which we are accustomed. And since the ordinary consciousness, with which we are concerned in ordinary life, is before all things founded on the little local self, and is in fact _self_-consciousness in the little local sense, it follows that to pass out of that is to die to the ordinary self and the ordinary world. It is to die in the ordinary sense, but in another sense it is to wake up and find that the ‘I,’ one’s real, most intimate self, pervades the universe and all other beings—that the mountains and the sea and the stars are a part of one’s body and that one’s soul is in touch with the souls of all creatures. Yes, far closer than before. It is to be assured of an indestructible immortal life and of a joy immense and inexpressible—“to drink of the deep well of rest and joy, and sit with all the Gods in Paradise.” So great, so splendid is this experience, that it may be said that all minor questions and doubts fall away in face of it; and certain it is that in thousands and thousands of cases the fact of its having come even once to a man has completely revolutionized his subsequent life and outlook on the world. * * * * *