any extreme pain. It is also used for the pangs of death. Much of the terror of death consists in the pangs and convulsions wherewith the agony seems attended; though we have reason to believe that the pain in such cases is ordinarily not extremely acute; a course of pain and sickness having usually stupified and indisposed the nerves for any quick sensations. However, various means have been thought of for mitigating the agony of death. Lord Bacon considers this as part of the province of a physician; and that not only where such a mitigation may tend to a recovery, but also when, there being no further hope of a recovery, it can only tend to make the passage out of life more calm and easy. Complacency in death, which Augustus so much desired, is certainly no small part of happiness. Accordingly, the author last cited ranks *euthanasia*, or the art of dying easily, among the desiderata of science; and does not even seem to disapprove of the course Epicurus took for that end,

---

**Hinc stygias ebrius haustis aquas.**

Opium has been applied for this purpose, with the applause of some, but the condemnation of more.

**AGONYCLITÆ**, or **AGONYCLITES**, in church history, a sect of Christians, in the 7th century, who prayed always standing, as thinking it unlawful to kneel.

**AGORÆUS**, in heathen antiquity, an appellation given to such deities as had statues in the marketplaces; particularly Mercury, whose statue was to be seen in almost every public place.