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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rests not upon a difference of data, but 

 upon a difference of logic. To my mind 

 the enumeration of ages at death of any 

 number of great men cannot prove un- 

 usual longevity unless we take into 

 consideration and can determine the 

 number of years which, on the average, 

 a person must have lived in order to 

 become a candidate for the class under 

 consideration. The comparison with 

 the average age (that is, the period of 

 about thirty-five or more years) is not 

 only false; it is essentially absurd; for 

 it would become possible only if we had 

 among poets, and painters, and musi- 

 cians, and historians, and scientists, and 

 generals a goodly number who suc- 

 cumbed to the diseases of early infancy, 

 or to some of the ills that juvenile flesh 

 is heir to. 



It may be well to illustrate at this 

 point just what conclusions may be 

 drawn from the data which Mr. Thayer 

 and other writers have presented. The 

 first conclusion is that it takes a consid- 

 erable length of time to become eminent 

 — on the whole a very natural and com- 

 prehensible statement. And with regard 

 to the astronomers previously men- 

 tioned it is even possible to go farther; 

 for these astronomers have been di- 

 vided into four degrees of eminence, and 

 it is found that astronomers of the first 

 rank are longer-lived than those of the 

 second, and these in turn are longer- 

 lived than those of the third class, and 

 these in turn are longer-lived than 

 those of the fourth class. Therefore, 

 the author concludes, the greatest as- 

 tronomers have been most favored with 

 length of years, and adds, as practical 

 advice, "Be an astronomer and live 

 long." Now, of course, the true con- 

 clusion is that it takes longer to ac- 

 complish work which will entitle one 

 to pre-eminence amongst astronomers 

 than to do work which will only 

 achieve moderate distinction. And the 

 practical conclusion would read, "Live 

 long enough to become great as an as- 

 tronomer and you will probably, with 

 the ordinary expectation of life, have 

 a good chance of completing your three 



score and ten." In the same way Mr. 

 Thayer's list of nineteenth-century 

 celebrities might fairly be said to sug- 

 gest the conclusion that in the present 

 century one must already have labored 

 for a goodly number of years before 

 one's name would be selected by a stu- 

 dent of the longevity of great men. So 

 far, then, these facts have an interest- 

 ing interpretation. 



It may also be worth while to note 

 that if all the men whose longevity is 

 to be compared are of a comparable 

 class (that is, comparable with regard 

 to the attainment of years which they 

 assume), then the longevity of different 

 groups of celebrities may be compared 

 with one another. Thus it is possible to 

 compare the longevity of musicians 

 with that of scientists (of about equal 

 eminence), and according to Mr. 

 Thayer*s lists the scientists lived ten 

 years longer than the musicians. The 

 same conclusion appears in my own 

 study, in which the scientists appear 

 amongst the longest-lived, and the 

 musicians amongst the shortest-lived 

 men of genius. This conclusion must 

 not be pressed too far, but in a gen- 

 eral way it certainly is a bit of evi- 

 dence worthy of consideration as prov- 

 ing that distinguished scientists live 

 longer than distinguished musicians. It 

 would be wrong to draw rigid conclu- 

 sions from comparisons of small groups, 

 and therefore it is better to contrast 

 the average age at death of the various 

 men studied in as large and as general 

 classes as possible; e. g., as men of 

 thought, men of feeling and men of ac- 

 tion. All of the studies with which I 

 am acquainted point to the conclusion 

 that men of thought live longer than 

 those who achieve distinction through 

 unusual qualities of their emotional na- 

 tures. 



We may now approach the question, 

 whether or not it is possible to pi'ove 

 that the men of distinction of the nine- 

 teenth century are longer-lived or short- 

 er-lived than their every-day contempo- 

 raries. It would be possible to do this 

 had we statistics of the age at death of 



