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老人のなかには死の恐怖で憂鬱になる者もいる。若い人の場合は,この感情を正当化できるものがある。戦闘(戦争)で殺される恐れを抱く理由のある若者は,人生が提供する最良のものを騙しとられているという思いで,苦々しく感じるのも,もっともであろう。しかし,人間の喜びと悲しみを知り,何であれ自分のなすべきことを全てなしとげた老人の場合には,死の恐怖を観ずることはいくらか卑しく恥ずべきことである。死の恐怖に打ち勝つ最良の方法は －少くとも私にはそう思われが－ 自分（あなた）の関心（の対象）を次第に広くかつ非個人的なものにしていき,ついには自我の壁が少しずつ退いていき,自分の生命がしだいに宇宙の生命に溶け込んでいくようにすることである。個々の人間存在は,川のようなものであるべきであろう。最初は小さく,狭い土手の間を流れ,烈しい勢いで,岩々を後にし,滝を越えて進。次第に川幅は広がり,土手は後退し,水はより静かに流れ,ついには,波や流れは見えなくなり,海のなかへ没入し,苦痛もなくその個的存在を失う。老年になって,このように人生を見られる人は,彼が好む事物が存在し続けるゆえに,死の恐怖に苦しまないであろう。そして,仮に,生命力の減退とともに,物憂さが増せば,休息の考えは忌むべきものではないだろう。私は,私のもはや出来ないことを他人が引き継いでいることを知りつつ,自分が可能なことはやったという考えに満足して,いまだ仕事をしている間に死にたいものである。
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Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it - so at least it seems to me - is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.
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