A Digression
When some days afterward in reference to the singularity just mentioned, the
Purser, a rather ruddy rotund person more accurate as an accountant than
profound as a philosopher, said at mess to the Surgeon, "What testimony to the
force lodged in will-power," the latter- saturnine, spare and tall, one in whom
a discreet causticity went along with a manner less genial than polite, replied,
"Your pardon, Mr. Purser. In a hanging scientifically conducted- and under
special orders I myself directed how Budd's was to be effected- any movement
following the completed suspension and originating in the body suspended, such
movement indicates mechanical spasm in the muscular system. Hence the absence of
that is no more attributable to will-power as you call it than to horse-power-
begging your pardon."
"But this muscular spasm you speak of, is not that in a degree more or less
invariable in these cases?"
"Assuredly so, Mr. Purser."
"How then, my good sir, do you account for its absence in this instance?"
"Mr. Purser, it is clear that your sense of the singularity in this matter
equals not mine. You account for it by what you call will-power, a term not yet
included in the lexicon of science. For me I do not, with my present knowledge,
pretend to account for it at all. Even should we assume the hypothesis that at
the first touch of the halyards the action of Budd's heart, intensified by
extraordinary emotion at its climax, abruptly stopt- much like a watch when in
carelessly winding it up you strain at the finish, thus snapping the chain- even
under that hypothesis, how account for the phenomenon that followed?"
"You admit then that the absence of spasmodic movement was phenomenal."
"It was phenomenal, Mr. Purser, in the sense that it was an appearance the
cause of which is not immediately to be assigned."
"But tell me, my dear Sir," pertinaciously continued the other, "was the
man's death effected by the halter, or was it a species of euthanasia?"
"Euthanasia, Mr. Purser, is something like your will-power: I doubt its
authenticity as a scientific term- begging your pardon again. It is at once
imaginative and metaphysical,- in short, Greek. But," abruptly changing his
tone, "there is a case in the sick-bay that I do not care to leave to my
assistants. Beg your pardon, but excuse me." And rising from the mess he
formally withdrew.
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