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 it, but with whom death seems but an accident, avoidable in principle if not in fact. The anatomical elements of this higher animal are a case in point. Flourens once tried to persuade us that the threshold of old age might be made to recede considerably, and there are biologists in the present day who give us some glimpse of a kind of vague immortality. We may, therefore, ask our readers to follow us in our examination of these re-opened if not novel questions, and we shall explain the views of contemporary physiology as to the nature of death, its causes, its mechanisms, and its signs.