to this day believe all men to be
naturally immortal and death to be nothing but an effect of sorcery. In
short, whether we regard the savage's attitude to death at the present
day or his ideas as to its origin in the remote past, we must conclude
that primitive man cannot reconcile himself to the notion of death as a
natural and necessary event; he persists in regarding it as an
accidental and unnecessary disturbance of the proper order of nature. To
a certain extent, perhaps, in these crude speculations he has
anticipated certain views of modern biology. Thus it has been maintained
by Professor August Weissmann that death is not a natural necessity,
that many of the lowest species of living animals do in fact live for
ever; and that in the higher animals the custom of dying has been
introduced in the course of evolution for the purpose of thinning the
population and preventing the degeneration of the species, which would
otherwise follow through the gradual and necessary deterioration of the
immortal individuals, who, though they could not die, might yet sustain
much bodily damage through hard knocks in the hurly-burly of eternal
existence on earth.

[Sidenote: Weissmann's view that death is not a natural necessity but an
adaptation acquired in the course of evolution for the advantage of the
race.]

On this subject I will quote some sentences from Professor Weissmann's
essay on the duration of life. He says, "The necessity of death has been
hitherto explained as due to causes which are inherent in organic
nature, and not to the fact that it may be advantageous. I do not
however believe in the validity of this explanation; I consider that
death is not a primary necessity, but that it has been secondarily
acquired as an adaptation. I believe that life is endowed with a fixed
duration, not because it is contrary to its nature to be unlimited, but
because the unlimited existence of individuals would be a luxury without
any corresponding advantage. The above-mentioned hypothesis upon the
origin and necessity of death leads me to believe that the organism did
not finally cease to renew the worn-out cell material because the nature
of the cells did not permit them to multiply indefinitely, but because
the power of multiplying indefinitely was lost when it ceased to be of
use.... John Hunter, supported by his experiments on _anabiosis_, hoped
to prolong the life of man indefinitely by alternate freezing and
thawing; and th