Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/62

48 the form under which our vital energies, that have their seat in every single cell of our organism, manifest themselves to our consciousness. Energy to live is identical with the wish to live. Any one who has had the opportunity of seeing many people die, will acknowledge the fact that people become easily resigned to death when weakened by disease or old age, but that there is a terrible struggle before the end is accepted as inevitable, by a strong and promising nature, stricken down by some accident at the opening of life's career. Suicide appears to be a contradiction to my assertion; it certainly pre-supposes an extremely powerful will, which is as certainly, only the outgrowth of an equally powerful vitality; hence it seems as if in suicides, the energy to live is in direct opposition to the wish to live. But in reality, suicide, except in those cases where it is due to some temporary aberration of the intellect, is merely an inconsiderate act to protect one's life against certain dangers that threaten it. The suicide throws himself into the arms of death because he dreads some impending physical or emotional disturbances; he would not have resorted to this extreme measure unless he had still prized life, for otherwise he would have had no reasons for fearing any disasters, that even at their worst, could only have deprived him of life. Every suicide is an example of the same frame of mind which impels the soldier to commit suicide before the battle, for fear that he may be shot during the day—consequently a proof, not of weariness of life nor of indifference to death, but of exactly the opposite sentiments. The axiom that the wish and the energy to live are identical, is thus proved to have no exception, and this wish to live continues in the very presence of death.

Every organic being, conscious of its life and vitality in every cell, finds it impossible to realize the idea of a