Chapter 11

Causes of death and of generation

468. At this point we encounter many important and subtle questions:

FIRST QUESTION:

How does living matter, detached from the animal, lose the normal state of organisation which makes it suitable for being the term of a single feeling? Before detaching itself, it certainly possessed the necessary organisation because it was felt, and the whole of the sentient principle, which is present where it feels, was in it. How can this state be preserved by a part that is detached?

It cannot be denied that a felt part, divided from an animal's body, has, considered in itself, a state of organisation suitable for being felt; there is nothing to show that it loses this state simply because it is cut off from the rest of the body. But the sensitive principle, we must note, not only feels but is continuously active, producing continuous movements in the living body it feels. Consequently, this term of its feeling has a continuous, intestine movement which, as I said, puts the sentient principle under continuous stimulation.(219) These movements cause unceasing change in the most intimate organisation of the matter, causing it to pass incessantly from one state to another. If normal organisation is to be maintained, these new states must always remain normal states. In other words, the movement must keep returning on itself, renewing and even improving the organisation by changing but not destroying it. These movements produced by the soul are of two kinds, one of which springs from what I have called the life instinct, the other from what I have called the sensuous instinct.(220) In certain cases however movements of the sensuous instinct thwart those of the life instinct; they disturb and disorganise the body, which the life instinct strives to organise better. In this way the sensuous instinct becomes the first cause of death.(221)

469. Moreover, the life instinct, that is, the organising principle, must continually struggle with brute force.(222) The mechanical, physical, chemical and other processes of this force act ceaselessly beside and independently of the life instinct. Consequently, they sometimes work in a direction contrary to the organisation which the instinct strives to maintain. If, in opposing the organisation to which the life instinct tends, they act with greater speed and vehemence than the instinct's organising process, matter obviously loses the organisation necessary for animal life. This is the second cause of death.

Death must always be attributed to one or other of these causes.

470. If we apply these theories to the phenomenon of death in general, we see why some living parts detached from the living body die shortly afterwards, while others continue to exhibit the phenomena of life for a varying length of time, but finally die. For example, some parts, still attached to the whole living body, die slowly; they undergo the processes of profound changes that brings them to death. This is the case with gangrene and paralysis. Some diseases (every disease is simply a series of the processes we are discussing) cause the whole body to die; others make it healthy. Finally, some parts detached from the animal remain constantly alive and build up the part that was removed from their organisation; or, if they have the complete part, develop and perfect it. This last case is called 'generation'.

The theories also help to see why some parts, detached from the body, continue to live while the body from which they detached themselves dies. For example, the male bee leaves its generative organs impaled in the female it has just fertilised, and dies; a great number of insects like the cockroach, ephemera, cochineal, etc., die after fertilisation. Here, new processes suitable for conserving life take place in the detached parts which make up a new individual. For the same reasons, processes follow with varying speed in the generating animal and cause its death.

Notes

(219) This question is discussed in AMS, 318-322.

(220) AMS, 380-388.

(221) We can be convinced that the sensuous instinct sometimes causes death if we consider those cases where it produces death very quickly, particularly in animals (in human beings it is stimulated and peculiarly changed by the abuse of intelligence). Many insects, for example, die in the act of giving life to other individuals. The cause must be the sensuous instinct. Naturalists note that the fly, tipula, sometimes falls dead solely on approaching the female. Virey says: 'We must believe that to generate is to deprive oneself of life and shorten one's days; it is like making a will or demonstrating one's mortality, because life is communicated only at the cost of one's own life.'

(222) Elsewhere we shall see what I mean by brute force; here, it is sufficient to accept the common notion.