The record-union., 1899-04-27

alterations The length Of the poten-
tial life cannot, it is true, be proved, for
| there is no absolute reason either. in
theory or in science why life should
ever end, any more than there is why
a man should not be twelve feet high;
but universal experience, or, as it is
sometimes called the rule of fire.
quency," is sufficient evidence
| Human life Mr. Young moreover
thinks, ends even in aberrant cases very
close to the century The longest life
of which there is proof that would sat
| isfy an insurance office does not ex-
coed 1O6 years. The duration of patri-
archal life asserted in Scripture, how
ever the statement may be explained,
cannot refer to individual life, and the
cases so often quoted of Jenkins, Parr,
| Cornaro and others remain entirely
| without verifcation They are some
times frauds, sometimes plumbers and
sometimes merely instances of ignorant
credulity The number even of CEN
tenarians is exceedingly few. The in
quiries of the Institute of Actuaries and
| the Faculty of Actuaries, together with
those of the actuary of the national
| debt office, cover more than SO0,V0O
| lives, and among them only twenty
two indisputable cases of life protracted
beyond the century can be discovered,
| of whom four were males and eighteen
females. These, it will be observed,
were all picked lives, persons either ac-
| cepted by the offices because they were
| likely to live, or persons with compare
l,tively good means who had unusual
| confidence in their own chances of sur
vival and therefore bought annuities.
| (Mr. Young. indeed, makes the exceed
| ingly acute suggestion that people really
know good deal about their own con-
situations, and that consequently the
self selection of annuitants by them
selves impairs the accuracy of many
calculations.) 1t follows that even
among such persons the chance of any
one reaching a hundred is only about
one in fifty thousand, while as the as.
sured especially among women, have
usually surmounted the great dangers
of life, the chance of any one taken in
discriminatory from the population is
almost indefinitely less.
The custom of humanity is therefore
against any one who wishes to be a
centenarian, while apparently his own
action will help him very little, the con-
lditions of longevity being in great meas
ure involuntary. Moderation in flesh
eating, it is true, and in the drinking
of alcohol conduces to heightened life,
and SO does placid temperament,
which, however, must not, we suspect
be artificial, as perpetual self-restraint
.eXhausts vital energy; but the three
main conditions were settled before the
aSpirant was born. He should be of
medium hight over which, as Scripture
tells us, he has no control; and he
should be born in one Of those families
the members of which have a general
habit of living to eighty-five or ninety.
This is much the most important requi-
site of all, and it is not quite estab-
lished that it is not a universal one.
Whence the quality is derived is not
yet understood, but it is beyond ques-
tion that there exists in some families
quality as separate as any race pc
culiarity which enables majority of
its members to go ON living beyond the
average period. They are not physically
stronger than other people, and they
are as often attacked by disease, but
they have a power of recovering them
selves completely after Illness which
other men do not possess and they con-
sequently decay more slowly. 1t is
probable, though not certain, indeed
that this popularity extends to whole
races, and that the greater average dur
alton of Western as compared with
Eastern life is derived from it. The
Asiatic-that is, he who is. never at
tackled by severe iMness-Hves as long
as the European, but if heri is attacked
he has an inferior faculty of recupera-
ton. He does not recover SO complete
ly, or he dies at once. 1t should be add
ed that for those wishing to be cente-
nar1ans 1t is convenient to be born a
woman, for the present popular notion
which Mr.. Young shows to be compare
lively new, that old women tend to live
longer than old men, is absolutely true
SCI true as to affect the tables of all life
insurance societies. More of them pass
the Tooth year, and they pass it by a
longer period of time though at last
the oil burns out in the lamp of both
sexes (This burning out of the oil is
by the way, one of the best sargume nts
for the usually illogical belief of the
materialists. 1t suggests that a man
may have at birth a. certain quantity
Of the essence called life, commonly
supposed to be inlmateriaA or spiritual,
and that when this is used up he ceases
as a living being to exist)
WIFI the total number of centenarians
Increase? The answer must almost GER
ta1nly be in the affirmative, at least as
regards the comforta Bile classes They
tend, as every one can see. for them
selves, to live longer. There is consid-
cradle evidence that in the fourteenth.
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries men
OF seventy were considered very aged,
and that a man of eighty was Il rare
phenomenon; and Of course the number
of the exceptionally old increases with
the number of the aged. There is no
increase, or an imperceptible one, IN the
degree of the exception, but there IS in
the number of exceptions a fact observ-
able in another department OF physics.
The ancient world produced a few men
as tail as modern giants-the Emperor
Maximum, for example-but it seems
certain that the proportion of six foot
ers, and. indeed, the general bulk, has
enormously increased. The Roman SOL
diery were small, 1.-THE men, and there
does not exist in England a set of suits
Of middle age armor which the larger
iGuardsmen of our day could by any
device or exertion put on foc battle.
There will, therefore, if medical science,
sanitation and the general habit of
obedience to the laws of health continue
to improve, be many more centenarians
possibly, Mr.. Young hints, SO many as
to make the sale of annuities based
upon existing tables of longevity a very
risky speculation. Whether that fact
will increase either the wisdom or the
happiness of the world is a more doubt
Q..I