inasmuch as from time immemorial diseases of all kinds have been considered the direct result of fascination, it was most natural that charms of varied form should be introduced as a protection. Many persons even of considerable education lend themselves to this superstition. The carrying in one's pocket of a potato, a lump of camphor or an amulet is, among other alleged charms, but an everyday illustration of this belief.

It would be possible to go on with an almost endless enumeration of the forms of this still generally prevalent belief in the power of the evil eye, and of the charms by which it may be averted. As has been set forth, it is but a particulate expression of a general and widespread belief in the existence of an evil being, for some vague and almost unsubstantial, for others assuming almost the proportions of the personal devil of mediaeval theology, or even of the Tyrolean Passion Plays. A discussion in a general way of this topic I have held to be not entirely foreign to the purpose of this society, it being one of the most interesting subjects of folklore study, and it may perhaps be considered just at the present to have a more particular interest for us in that we have so recently been favored with a most delightful and scholarly essay on the "Salem Witchcraft" by Prof. John Fiske, in which he graphically set forth the mechanism and the consequences of an aggravated expression of this belief, which constitutes the most serious blot which can be found upon the history of the Protestant white races in this country.

II
THANATOLOGY

A QUESTIONNAIRE AND A PLEA FOR A NEGLECTED STUDY[2]

Is it possible to watch the "vital spark of heavenly flame," as it quits "this mortal frame" and not be overcome by the mystery of death as the termination of that even greater mystery, life? Is there inspiration in the pagan emperor's address to his soul—those Latin verses which Pope has so beautifully translated?

To the speculative philosopher death may have a different significance, and one not altogether included in that given to it by the physiologist. To the former it is a subject for transcendental speculation; to the latter it is the terminal stage of that adjustment of internal and external relations which, for Spencer, constitutes life. For us its primary and immediate significance is purely mundane, yet it deserves such serious study from a practical viewpoint as it seldom receives.

What is death? When does it actually occur? How can it occur when the majority of cells in the previously living organism live on for hours or for days or, under certain favoring circumstances, retain potentialities of life for indefinite periods? These and numberless related questions constitute a line of inquiry that may well call for a separate department of science. Pondering in this wise, I long ago coined an expression which years later I found had been incorporated in the scientific dictionaries, though never before heard by me or encountered in my reading. "Thanatology" is this word, and it may be defined as the study of the nature and causes of death. Inseparable from it, however, are certain considerations regarding the nature and causes of life. Yet I would not introduce a compound term such as "biothanatology," wishing so far as possible to limit the study and the meaning.

Let us ask ourselves a few more questions. Does life inhere in any particular cell? In the leukocytes? In the neurons? Both are capable of stimulated activity long after the death of their host. In fact, by suitable electric stimulation, nearly all the phenomena of life may be reproduced after death, save consciousness and mentality alone. Do these then constitute life, and their suppression or abolition death? If so what about the condition of trance, or of absolute imbecility, congenital or induced? Or, again, how can a decapitated frog go on living for hours? Is it perhaps because the heart is the vital organ that the hearts of some animals will continue to palpitate for hours after their removal from the bodies? Yet the animals which have lost them certainly promptly die. Suddenly stop a man's heart-action by electrocution, or the guillotine, or a bullet, and he dies, we say, instantly. Let it stop equally suddenly under chloroform and there is a period of several minutes during which it may be set going. Let a man apparently drown and this viable period becomes even longer—say a goodly fraction of an hour. During the interval is he alive or dead, or is there an intermediate period of absolutely suspended animation? And if so, in what does it consist?

Is there a vital principle? If so what is it? Is such a thing conceivable? Can such a concept prevail among physicists? Can we consent even to entertain in this direction the notion of what is so vaguely called "the soul?" Of course, those who talk most lucidly about the soul know least about it, and no man can define it in comprehensible terms; but can consideration of the soul (whatever it may be) be omitted from our thanatology? Probably not, at least by many thinkers who cannot segregate their physics from their theology. Sad it is that theology, which might be so consolatory had it any fixed foundation, should be utterly impotent when so much is wanted of it. Theology, however, has little if aught to do with thanatology.

Is protoplasm alive? If so, then why may we not believe, with Binet, in the psychic life of micro-organisms? He seems to have advanced good reason for assuming that we may do so, albeit such manifestations in either direction may be scarcely more than expressions of chemiotaxis. But if protoplasm be alive in any proper sense, as it would appear (else where draw the line?), just when does it so appear and whence comes its life? If it be alive, then life inheres in the nitrogen compounds composing it, or else is an adjunct of matter, imponderable, elusive, something un-conceivable if undeniable. The vitalists are of late perhaps attaining an ascendency which for decades they had lost, since they maintain that life is not to be explained by chemical activities alone. And yet it is possible to set going in the eggs of certain sea animals the phenomena of life, or to liberate them by certain weak solutions of alkaline cyanides, without the pressure or assistance of fructifying spermatozoa. In such cases life or death are determined by ionization and certain chemicals, or by their absence. Where then, again, is the vital principle? Or is it inherent in the ion, and was Bion correct when he said "electricity is life?"

The life of a cell is then necessarily quite distinct from the life of its host, nor can the latter be composed simply of the numerical total lives of its components. Some lower animals bear semidivision, in which case each half soon becomes a complete unit by itself. Others seem to bear the loss of almost any individual part without loss of life, and it is hard to say just which is the vital part. The central pumping organ is perhaps the sine qua non, when it exists. But when non-existent, then what?

Again, while a living organism may be artificially divided into viable portions, no method seems known by which a series of separate cells may be, as it were, assembled or combined into one, of which a new unit may result from assemblage or combination. The more highly specialized or complex the cell,