The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

tion) that this may be my appointed end, it is not at all the more likely because of my lean and hungry appearance. I am in far more danger of nervous diseases, from which nothing but perpetual self•management, and the fortunate circumstance of my life and disposition, preserve me. Nature gave me an indefatigable activity of mind, and a buoyancy of spirit which has ever enabled me to think little of difficulties, and to live in the light of hope ; these gifts, too, were accompanied with an hilarity which has enabled me to retain a boy's heart to the age of eight•and thirty : but my senses are perilously acute—impressions sink into me too deeply: and at one time ideas had all the vividness and apparent reality of actual impressions to such a degree, that I believe a speedy removal to a foreign country, bringing with it a total change of all external objects, saved me from imminent danger. The remedy, or, at least, the prevention, of this is variety of employment; and that it is that has made me the various writer that I am, even more than the necessity of pursuing the gainful paths of literature. If I fix my attention, morning and evening, upon one subject, and if my latest evening studies are of a kind to interest me deeply, my rest is disturbed and broken ; and those bodily derangements ensue that indicate great nervous susceptibility. Experience having taught me this, I fly from one thing to another, each new train of thought neutralising, as it were, the last ; and thus in general maintain the balance so steadily, that I lie down at night with a mind as tranquil as an infant's. That I am a very happy man I owe to my early mar riage. When little more than one-and-twenty I married under circumstances as singular as they well could be— and, to all appearance, as improvident; but from that hour to this I have had reason to bless the day. The main source of disquietude was thus at once cut off; I had done with hope and fear upon the most agitating and most im portant action of life, and my heart was at rest. Several years elapsed before I became a father; and then the keenest sorrow which I ever endured was for the loss of an only child, twelve months old. Since that event I have had five children, most of whom have been taken from me. Of all sorrows these are the most poignant; but I am the better for them, and never pour out my soul in prayer without acknowledging that these dispensations have drawn me nearer to God. De la Longevite Humaine et de la Quantitif de Vie sur le Globe. By P. Flourens. Paris : Gamier Freres. No book brought out in Paris for many years past has created such a sensation as this one— everybody is reading it, everybody talking about it ; and, most assuredly, it will be re ceived with equal eagerness wherever French literature is read or translated. Rarely, in deed, has a work been produced which addresses itself bo directly and so persuasively to all men, without distinction of rank or creed, of nation or clime ; for it reveals a great scientific truth in which each human being has a positive personal interest—a truth, which if acted on, as it ought to be, and as one may expect it will be, will entirely change the destinies of all humanity. Not to keep the reader in suspense, we will tell him at once that this truth is that—each man is destined to live for a hundred years. " A hundred years ! Pshaw quackery ! " is, we hear, his con temptuous answer. But wait a bit, good sir, if you please. There is not a word in the book about marvellous elixirs, or the discovery of the lapis philosophorum, or Paracelsus, or the Rosicrucians ; and the writer is no less a personage than that M. Flourens who is known to all Europe as one of the most dis tinguished savans of the day, and as the author of many most learned works on physiological science ; who is, besides, Professor of Com parative Physiology in the Museum of National History of Paris, Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Sciences in the same city—the most renowned scientific institution in Europe —who is a member of our own Royal Society, and who belongs to the academies of Edin burgh, Stockholm, Munich, Madrid, Turin, and of almost every other capital in Christen dom. It is, of course, absolutely impossible that such a man could be guilty of anything approaching quackery or deception on the public ; and when, therefore, such a man puts his name to any assertion, however start ling it may appear, however contradictory t 3 old, preconceived, and universal notions it may be—the public, we hold, are bound to re ceive it with serious attention, and even to accept it as a scientific truth, until it shall be proved to be erroneous by person* of equal scientific authority. -- - - This said, we will proceed to make such translations from M. Flourens' book as will enable the reader to see what his extraordinary revelations, which have set all Pai is wonder ing, are : Are there any,_ . insane of prolonging the dnrati3n of human life ? To prolong it, that is to say to make it lift as Wag as tha sonstitution of man w il l hear.-741, - . THE PRESS.• there is a means, and a very certain means, and that is to live soberly. A sober life, by which I mean a well-ordered, well-conducted, reasonable life, is the means, the sure means, of prolonging life. But to prolong it otherwise, that is to say, to make it last beyond the term marked by the constitution of man—no, undoubtedly there are no means. Each species of animal has its determined duration of life. This Bunn understood. He sought, and I believe he was the first who did so, the physiological law of this duration. "As the stdg," he says, "is five or six years in growing, it lives seven times five orsix years, that is to say, thirty-five or forty years." He says elsewhere—" The duration of life may be measured by that of the time of growing. An animal which in a short time attains its full growth perishes sooner than another which is longer in growing." And he says of man—" The man who does not die of sickness, lives everywhere eighty or one hundred years." It is now about' fifteen years since I commenced researches into the physiological law of the duration of life, both in man and in some of our domestic animals. The most striking result I have obtained is that the normal duration of the life of man is one hundred years. A century's life—such is what Providence has given to man. Few men, it is true, attain that great term ; but how few men are there who do what is necessary to attain it I With our way of living, our passions, oar vexations, man does not die, but he kills himae( f. That length of life is strictly proportioned to the time an animal is in growing, is a fact which is demonstrated beyond all question by innumerable observations. It is true alike of the camel and the ox, the horse and the lion, the dog and the cat—true, so far as can be as certained, of the elephant, of fishes, and of insects—and is, no doubt, true by analogy of every living creature. To ascertain the natural limit of the life of man, we have, then, in the first place, to discover when ho leaves off growing. On this point no absolute cer tainty has hitherto existed, but M. Flourens thinks himself warranted in announcing that he has discovered it : As long as the bones are not united to their epiphyses, the body grows. When once the bones and the epiphyses are united the body grows no more : and it is at about the age of twenty that this union is effected. Assuming this to be correct, the next thing to be asked is—what does experience demon strate to be the ordinary period man should live after he has ceased to grow? Is it seven times the period of growth, as Buffon said of the stag ? M. Flonrens, who has the advantage of possessing all the knowledge acquired since Buffon, and who has made long and patient researches for himself, says that it is five times the term of growth, and not seven And so he comes to the conclusion that man ought to live one hundred years. He says : The union of the bones and the epiphyses is, as I have said, effected in man at twenty years of age. In the camel it takes place at eight, in the horse at five, in the lion at four, in the dog at two, in the cat at eighteen months, in the rabbit at twelve, &c. Man, being twenty years in growing, lives five times twenty years—that is to say, one hundred years ; the camel is eight years in growing, and lives five times eight years—that is to say, forty years ; the horse is five years in growing, and he lives five times live years—that is to say, twenty-five years; and so with the others. Having thus lengthened life, M. Flourens divides it as follows : Life is divided into two nearly equal halves—one of growth, the other of decline. Each of these halves is divided into two others, and hence the four ages of life— infancy, youth, virility, and old age. Each of these ages is subdivided into two ages. There is a first and second infancy, a first and second youth, a first and second viril age, a first and second o.d age. It is not easy to deter mine the precise duration of each of these ages and sub ages. But I propose the following duration :—For the first, infancy—from the birth up to ten years—that is infancy properly so called ; and for the second, from ten to twenty is adolescence : the first youth extends from twenty to thirty, and the second from thirty to forty; the first viril age extends from forty to fifty-five, and the second from fifty-five to seventy. The viril age, taken altogether, is the best of man—it is literally the viril epoch of his life. At seventy the first old age commence', and it extends to eighty•five ; and at eighty-five the second and last old age begins. I prolong the duration of the first infancy to ten years because it is only from nine to ten that the second denti tion is terminated. I prolong adolescence to twenty years because it is only at twenty years that the development of the bones is terminated, and with it the growth of the body in length. I prolong youth to forty years because it is only towards that age that the increase of the body in bulk ter minates. After forty the body does not, properly speaking, become enlarged; the augmentation of volume which then takes places is not a veritable organic development, but a simple accumulation of fat. After the growth, or, to speak more exactly, after the de velopment in length, and after that in bulk, I find a third, which, it is true, is not indicated by physiologists, but which seems to me not less real. I mean the internal and profound movement which acts in the most secret tissues of our parts, and which, rendering those parts more firm and perfect, renders all ftuietions ram Assured and the SATURDAY, entire organism more complete. I call this invigorati on , and it takes place from forty to fifty years. Once effected, it maintains itself to the age of sixtyfive or seventy: At seventy old age commences. 13ut, physiologickly sp ea k. ing, what has taken place which enables me to recognise that it has commenced? What is the fact, the character which reveals it to me? Ancient physiologists distin guished, with great reason, two species, or rather two pro. visions, of force—that in reserve and that in use; or, as they said, vires in posse et vires in acts; or, as liarthez says, the radical and the acting forces. In youth there is great deal of force in reserve ; and it is the progressive diminution of that fund which constitutes the physiological character of old age. As long as the old man only employs his acting forces he does not perceive that he has sustained any loss ; but when he somewhat exceeds the limits of these usual and acting forces he feels himself fatigued, exhausted ; he feels that be has no longer the hidden re sources, the reserved and superabundant forces of youth. We have now quoted enough to show on what grounds M. Flourens thinks himself justified in telling us that we are warranted by God's providence in hoping to live for thirty years more than the "three score and ten" to which we have hitherto been contented to look. It is to be expected that his marvellous discovery will be vehemently assailed by his eon frerea, and it is certainly very right and proper that it should be subjected to vigorous contro versy. For ourselves, however, we receive it with the respect due to everything which a prince of science proclaims ex cathedra, and with the profound conviction that, since the first phy siologist of our time so proclaims it, it must be true. There is one very essential point, how ever, on which we could have wished M. Flou rens to be more explicit. He expressly de clares that a sober life is essential to the attain ment of the longevity for which a man is destined, but he does not tell us what sobriety is. The " well-ordered, well-conducted, " and reasonable life " mentioned in our first extract is a very vague definition, inasmuch as there are thousands of men who lead such a life who will, in all human probability, go to their long homes at the ages their fathers did. Neither does the definition which he presents in another place help us out of the difficulty : " good conduct, an existence always occupied, " labour, study, moderation, sobriety in all things." What he should have done was to have given us soli() indication as to what we should eat, drink, wear, what time we should sleep, what work, what spend in study or amusement, what in exercise. True he goes at great length into the manner in which old Cornaro, the Italian, contrived by sobriety to spin out his life to upwards of one hundred years, though physicians had declared when he was thirty-five that ho had not two years to live ; but he himself says that Cornaro's sobriety was excessive, and, besides, what suited him would not suit others, and what was good in Venice and Padua would be death in damper and colder climates. In writing of old age, M. Flourens repudiates Horace's growl, and draws the most charm ing pictures of the pleasures of the latter period of life, when, as old Fontenelle said, " Fortune is established, reputation made, " consideration obtained, the state of life fixed, " and passions calmed down." But that inexo rable tyranny of newspapers—space—warns us to close. For the same reason we must leave altogether unnoticed the chapters on the " Quantity of Life on the Globe," and the " Ap pearance of Life on the Globe," though they are brimful of instruction and of observations which make men ponder. The Warden. By Anthony Trollope. London Longmans. IT would be wrong to deny that there is in this volume a good deal of " cleverness," but it would be equally wrong to give it much fur ther praise. The mal administration of edu cational and other charities on which the tale, if it can be so called, is founded, has been at tacked of late years in the fair demagogical style of alternate exaggeration and invention of abuses. The majority of " reformers,' especially of episcopal and capitular institu tions, are energetic, not because they hate Christian education less, but hate bishops and deans more. Their remedies are always of two classes, either that the income of each charity should be handed over to the literary institutions and town councils, or that the " intentions of the founder" should be carried out by giving a carriage and pair to each