Show prolonging LIFE the question of the longevity of man its causes and susceptibility of expansion are matters which receive attention from minds minda trained in scientific channels as well as many others it is altogether an important and interesting te subject but all or nearly all the discussions of it contain such a decided percentage of theorizing that to most people they are not convincing and therefore not satisfactory A writer in the queen talks up the subject from a hypothetical standpoint and begins by supposing that if it became through the advance of medical science as common for men to live through the century as an it now is for them to reach the three wore score and ten what a differ ence the extra thirty years would makel make he pursues the theme in the following resi readable dable strain at 20 WO we that is to say those most enviable persons who are only 20 now look forward to forty five years of strength and work then at 50 we should be in the position which we now occupy at 20 think of a darwin a huxley a tyndal an owen working not for forty five but for seventy five years clear and strong of brain what discoveries should we not makel make but we are not all philosophers some are state statesmen emen there would be therefore losses think of certain great orators and party leaders to name any would be invidious going on for seventy five and heirs would have a good long time to wait and rich men would have a bad time because people would not wand stand being poor for years on end and then we should d be calling out for a further exten sion of life what a shame it would be said to out us off at a miserable paltry just when we were beginning to understand life everything is short shore augustine that hath an end truly he that loveth his hia live shall lose 1411 14 it 1 1 and be that devotes too much time to the means whereby it can be lengthened out unduly is wasting effort that might be profitably employed it is easy to understand that most people are continually doing things have a tendency to shorten their lives and then it ought to be as well understood that it if they did not do these theme things they would in the normal course of things live just so much longer that is about as near to it as science can ever come |