76 



AGE 



in his career without passing those stages that 

 prepare him for the cessation of his existence ; 

 what do we gain by such an explanation? 

 Nothing ; for the term vital power which we 

 employ is but a hypothetical cause, or if more 

 closely examined, is scarcely even this; it is 

 but an abstract term applicable to a number of 

 actions that do not occur in the inorganic 

 world. The vital power of a body is but the 

 collective manifestation of its vital actions, and 

 to say therefore that only a certain quantum of 

 vital power is inherent in it, is but to express 

 in other words the simple fact that those actions 

 are circumscribed. Discarding this explana- 

 tion, shall we say that the fact must be referred 

 to some deficiency in the media of the being's 

 existence; that, although the aliment, the air, 

 the light and caloric are competent to the pro- 

 duction of a certain degree of growth, they 

 cannot extend it, and that, were their conditions 

 different, the animal development would be 

 more perfect. It is easy perhaps to suppose 

 this, but we do not see how it can be proved, 

 nor indeed that existing analogies favour it. 

 On the surface of our globe there is every 

 variety in the temperature, in the humidity, and 

 in the electric conditions of the atmosphere, 

 and every diversity in the articles of food em- 

 ployed ; in more limited spheres there are the 

 greatest diversities in these several respects 

 produced artificially by the various occupations 

 of mankind ; and although we find, both among 

 races and individuals, great varieties of deve- 

 lopment, which may occasionally be traced to 

 some relation with the media in which they 

 live, these varieties are by no means in propor- 

 tion to the differences of the media, and in the 

 majority of cases the former are independent 

 of the latter. In the temperate zone, with a 

 due proportion of animal and vegetable diet, 

 man appears to attain his most perfect deve- 

 lopment, and with however great skill he 

 adapts these circumstances, he never surpasses 

 a certain point, and from what we know of his 

 physiology no great alteration in any one of the 

 external stimuli of his existence could be tole- 

 rated. A different proportion of the oxygen, 

 nitrogen, and carbon in the atmosphere, we 

 know full well to be noxious ; a larger or 

 smaller quantity of aqueous vapour suspended 

 in it will occasion many well-known maladies ; 

 the same may be said of alterations in the ba- 

 lance of the electricity that surrounds us. Great 

 extremes of heat and cold may be borne for 

 awhile, but it is obvious that they are not so 

 well adapted to a healthy state of the system, 

 and therefore to its growth, as intermediate de- 

 grees ; and consequently it is not easy to con- 

 ceive any degree either above or below these 

 limits consistent even with existence. Fami- 

 liar enough also are we with the effects of full 

 and sparing, of simple and mixed dietetics, 

 and with the fact that between certain well- 

 known bounds lie the salutary quantities and 

 qualities. From all which it appears suffici- 

 ently evident, that we cannot conceive any 

 difference in the amount or properties of the 

 known stimuli of life, that would be more 



favourable to the growth of man, than those 

 which are to be found in the range of the known 

 variations, whether natural or artificial. From 

 the beginning there must have been established 

 a direct relation between the organization of 

 the body and the outward elements ; the latter 

 are nothing but stimulants adapted to co-exist- 

 ing susceptibilities, or to put it more closely, 

 man is not made by, but for or with, the sur- 

 rounding agents ; his lungs are fashioned in cor- 

 respondence to the atmosphere which he breathes, 

 his digestive organs to the food that is spread 

 so plenteously before him, and his nervous 

 system to the subtle imponderable agents that 

 play about him ; consequently as his organs 

 only act in concert with, and do not result from 

 the media of his existence, a development be- 

 yond that which he is known to acquire must 

 proceed quite as much from the former as from 

 the latter; and the supposition, the value of 

 which we have been endeavouring to estimate, 

 thus falls to the ground. If man could become 

 a larger, more powerful, or more sagacious 

 animal than he now is, he must not only live in 

 different media, but must possess a different 

 constitution ; in other words, the characters 

 that distinguish him as a species must be 

 altered. The question, then, that offered itself 

 remains to our apprehension unsolved by either 

 of the hypotheses. The limitation of man's 

 development is like the definite period of his 

 duration, and a hundred other circumstances 

 connected with his existence, an ultimate fact ; 

 no event that we are able to discover intervenes 

 between its production and the will of the 

 Deity. 



Maturity, though varying with every indi- 

 vidual, may be said to take place somewhere 

 between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. It 

 is a general opinion that it is a stationary con- 

 dition ; that when such changes have taken 

 place in the frame, as render the human being 

 capable of undertaking the various duties and 

 occupations to which adults alone are adequate, 

 there are no further alterations till the period of 

 declining age ; that, in short, growth has entirely 

 ceased. But this idea is not strictly correct, 

 for there is in all probability no period when 

 the system is absolutely stationary; it must 

 either be advancing to or receding from the 

 state of perfection. This is of course more 

 obvious when we know that augmentation of 

 bulk is only a part of that process which per- 

 fects the organization. (See NUTRITION.) It 

 is true that at the adult age the determinate 

 height and figure, the settled features, the 

 marked mental and moral character, naturally 

 give rise to the idea that a fixed point has been 

 attained ; but a little inquiry soon teaches us 

 that the individual is still the subject of some 

 progressive changes. It is the stature only that 

 is stationary, for this depends on the skeleton, 

 which ceases to lengthen before the period we 

 speak of. But the capability of powerful and 

 prolonged muscular exertions increases for some 

 years; there must consequently be a change in 

 the muscular tissue. The intellectual faculties 

 have not attained their maximum, although we 



