beyond it, thus doing
it the same injustice at its going as at its coming. Is it death that
digs our graves and orders us to keep there that which was made to
disappear? If we cannot think without horror of the fate of the
beloved in the grave, is it death or we that placed him there? Because
death carries the spirit to some place unknown, shall we reproach it
with our bestowal of the body which it leaves with us? Death descends
upon us to take away a life or change its form: let us judge it by
what it does and not by what we do before it comes and after it is
gone. And it is already far away when we begin the frightful work
which we try hard to prolong as much as we possibly can, as though we
were persuaded that it is our only security against forgetfulness. I
am well aware that, from any other than the human point of view, this
proceeding is very innoxious. Looked upon from a sufficient height,
decomposing flesh is no more repulsive than a fading flower or a
crumbling stone. But, when all is said, it offends our senses, shocks
our memory, daunts our courage, whereas it would be so easy for us to
avoid the hateful test. Purified by fire, the memory lives in the
heights as a beautiful idea; and death is naught but an immortal birth
cradled in flames. This has been well understood by the wisest and
happiest nations in history. What happens in our graves poisons our
thoughts together with our bodies. The figure of death, in the
imagination of men, depends before all upon the form of burial; and
the funeral rites govern not only the fate of those who depart, but
also the happiness of those who stay, for they raise in the very
background of life the great image upon which their eyes linger in
consolation or despair.

X

WHEN CONTEMPLATING THE UNKNOWN
INTO WHICH DEATH HURLS US,
LET US FIRST PUT RELIGIOUS
FEARS FROM OUR MINDS

There is, therefore, but one terror particular to death: that of the
unknown into which it hurls us. In facing it, let us not delay in
putting from our minds all that the positive religions have left
there. Let us remember only that it is not for us to prove that they
are not proved, but for them to establish that they are true. Now not
one of them brings us a proof before which a candid intelligence can
bow. Nor would it suffice if that intelligence were able to bow; for
man lawfully to believe and thus to limit his endless seeking, the
proof would need to be irresistible. The God o