4. The extinction of the organic life causes the separation of the soul from the body by determining the rupture of the fluidic link that unites them together; but this separation never takes place abruptly: the perispiritual fluid is gradually disengaged from all the organs of the body, so that the separation is only absolute and complete when not a single particle of the perispirit remains united to a single molecule of the body. The pain experienced, by the soul, at the moment of death, is in direct proportion to the number of points of contact existing between the body and the perispirit, and the greater or less amount of difficulty and slowness with which the separation takes place. We must, therefore, not disguise from ourselves the fact that death may be more or less painful, according to the circumstances that we have now to examine.
