nation in flight from every reality, not least the reality ofndeath.nThe fear of dying trumps even our fear of death. Let menlive, we tell ourselves, a solid seventy-five to eighty years inngood health, patched up from time to time by the surgeons,nand then let us “go gentle into that good night” without painnor fear. To escape the torments of dying, we are willing evennto kill ourselves. For a Christian, self-murder is a sin againstnthe Holy Ghost, an act of ultimate denial and despair. I amnnot dogmatic on this subject; there are some circumstancesnin which suicide might be the least evil choice, but thosencases are as rare and exceptional as the scenarios designed bynprofessors of ethics.nFor most of us, suicide is a cowardly rebellion against thenGod who made us, whether we acknowledge Him or not. Itnis a denial of the goodness of creation, a repudiation ofnall — the good as well as the bad — we have experienced. Itnis an annihilation of our very lives, and if there is an afterlifenfor the suicide, it is the torture of the amnesiac who knowsnhe once had a real existence somewhere, but he has lost it.nHe will look upon the faces of wife and children, parentsnand friends, and be told, “these were all you loved, were allnyou were,” and yet feel nothing but the despair that comesnfrom feeling nothing.nTo escape dying by compassing our own death is the verynopposite of all the world’s wisdom. The end of life is death,nand he that would live well had best prepare to die well.nThat is the burden of Jeremy Taylor’s wise and beautifulnbook. The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying. “He thatnwould die well,” says Taylor, “must always look for death,nevery day knocking at the gates of the grave; and then thengates of the grave shall never prevail upon him to do himnmischief.” So far from being an exclusively Christiannmessage, Taylor recognized that “this was the advice of allnthe wise and good men of the world.”nIn the days when all educated men knew a good deal ofnLatin, if not of Greek, this wisdom could not be escaped.ntransactionnNo one who has read Horace or Sophocles can fail tonappreciate the pagan understanding of mortality as the greatnfact that gives shape and meaning to human life. Even thenerotic poets harp on death as much as love, as if life’snsweetest pleasures derived added piquancy from the bitterngall of the grave. The Iliad is an endlessly illustrated sermonnon death, and its hero, Achilles, was in legend given thenchoice between a short, glorious life and a protractednexistence without glory. His Trojan opponent. Hector, is nonless tragic in his awareness. In the same breath that henadvises his wife to rear their son to be a brave champion, hentells her, “I know full well the day is coming when holy Troynwill perish.” Scipio Africanus is said to have quoted thesenlines at the destruction of Carthage, prophesying a similarnfate for his own, for the moment, triumphant nahon.nAll this we have forgotten, our philosophy along with ournfaith, our history along with our Latin, and much of what wencall the welfare state — and all our schemes for socializingnhealth and dying — is no more than a giant tomb we arenconstructing as a refuge from the fact of death. As JohnnGray observed some time ago in this magazine, there arenvirtues in both Christian and pagan cultures, but for annex-Christian culture, for a nation that has lost its faith, therenis no hope, because it transfers its impossible longings fornimmortality into the present sphere and gives to governmentnthe power that only a god can exercise.nThe state, to use Hobbes’s language, is no longer a mortalngod but one that claims immortality along with infallibility.nAs that god assumes all power over life and death, it cannbrook no rival, have no other god before it. At the end ofnBrave New World the world-controller explains that the statendepends on the illusions of permanent health and happiness,nbecause the sick and the aged begin to think queer thoughtsnabout God. “God isn’t compatible,” he pointed out, “withnmachinery and scientific medicine and happiness. You mustnmake your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery,nmedicine, and happiness.” <^nLearned, thoughtful, and superblynwritten ^A -Robert NisbetnNATIONAL REVIEWn”In this probing and thoughfui book, ThomasnFleming has begun to address the principalnchallenge to our society and polity.”n-Elizabeth Fox-GenovesenCHRONICLESn”A thoughtful conservative of the old school.n… Progressives and radicals could benefitnfrom grappling with Fleming’s intellectuallynstimulating presentation.”nTHE PROGRESSIVEnISBN; 0-88738-189-8 (cloth) 276 pp. $32.95nMajor credit cards accepted. Call (201) 932-2280nSend prepaid orders to:nP””^ transaction publishersni r« I Department FLn^. am Rutgers-The State Universityntransaction New Brunswick, N.J. 08903nnnFEBRUARY 1992/13n