DREAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 263 



insects at pleasure that we can cause one indivi- 

 dual to live more than twice as long as another of 

 the same species, and vice versa. Had Paracelsus 

 made this discovery, it would have led him to 

 pursue his researches after the elixir of immor- 

 tality with redoubled confidence, and would have 

 supplied him with an argument for the possibility 

 of prolonging the life of man beyond its usual 

 term, which his sceptical opponents would have 

 found some difficulty in rebutting. Even the 

 logical Reaumur seems inclined to infer from it, 

 that this object of the alchemist's was not so 

 chimerical as we are wont to conclude. He con- 

 fesses, however, that, if it were to be attained only 

 by the same process as effects the extension of an 

 insect's life, by prolonging its state of torpor 

 and insensibility, few would choose to enjoy it on 

 such conditions. The man of pleasure might, per- 

 haps, not object to a sleep of a hundred years, in 

 the hope of finding something new under the sun 

 when he awakened ; and an ardent astronomer 

 would probably commit himself with scientific 

 joy to a repose as long and as sound as that of the 

 Seven Sleepers, for the chance of viewing his 

 predicted return of a comet on stepping out of 



