192 



The Review of Reviews. 



February 20, 1906. 



WHY SHOULD WE EVER DIE? 



Because We Want To. 



My ever delightful, genial and entertaining con- 

 frere, M. Finot of La Revue, not content with com- 

 forting the Continent by his demonstration that no 

 one needs to die unless he wants to, has now availed 

 himself of the pulpit of the Contemporary Review in 

 order to preach his consoling gospel to the English. 

 speaking world. M Finot does not exactly address 



us, '• ( )h. men. 



live for ever!" but he does argue 



very strongly in favour of his favourite theory that 

 we might all be centenarians if we only had the will 

 to live. I am quite sure that it would be better foi 

 the world if M. Finot were to live to be iooo years 

 old; but about many of M. Finot's contemporaries 

 — 1 am not qjuite so sure whether even at three score 

 and ten we should not prefer their room to their 

 company. But even if we do not accept the gospel 

 of possible longevity in its full extent, there is very 

 much good sense in what M. finot has to say. lb- 

 tells us that- — 



Dr P. Regnault relates that in treating a hypochondriac 



he advised him to write on the wall every evening the 

 words •• I am happy," and to go off to Bleep in lull view 

 of them. After a tew weeks happiness began to steal Into 



his spirit. 



So he would write up before the eyes of the human 

 race, "You will live to be 150 years old." and the 

 death-rate would at <>nc.e begin to fall off. 



W.u whj should we not endeavour to live by auto-sug- 

 gestion, iiistead of dying of it? We mighl keep before 



our eyes numerous examples of healthy and robust 

 longevity and let our consciousness be invaded and con- 

 quered by the possibility of living beyond a hundred years. 

 When we think over their case-, we realise that it was the 

 suggestion of tone, the innate conviction that resistance 

 is possible, together with the absence of depressing ideas. 

 which chiefly contributed to the preservation of their 

 health and their prolonged life. So that we see how im- 

 portant it is to shut the door of one's heart, or rather of 

 one's brain, to all injurious ideas as to stingy limits to 

 life. 



The properly-used forces of our mind may render u- im- 

 portant services with regard to the prolongation of our 

 life There is no doubt that ill-directed suggestion shortens 

 it Arrived at a certain aae we poison ourselves with the 

 idea of or with thoughts about our approaching end. We 

 lose faith in our own strength and our own strength leaves 

 us Our unreasoned fears, by demoralising our minds, only 

 accelerate the destructive advance of old age and death. 

 In facing them with the careful consideration worthy of a 

 well-informed man, we remove our limits. 



Even if we do not quite vanquish death, we could 

 extend the limits of life by curtailing the ravages of 

 disease : — 



The illnesses which might have been avoided, as well as 

 the evils of the education of youth, abstract from life 

 more years than each would require in order to become a 

 centenarian. Thus we see that the science of life, the art 

 of using it intelligently, would distinctly prolong its limits. 

 The people who groan at the years which in Blipping away 

 bring them nearer the fatal denouement remind one of the 

 prodigals who lament the enforced outlay of a few half- 

 pence, whilst they are tossing sovereigns out of the win- 

 dow. 



M. Finot also has a crumb of comfort in the fact 

 that if we ran only manage to hold out till past 

 eighty we shall find it easier to go on living — that is, 

 of course, if we have anything to live on. He says : 



From the age of eighty illness has less power over an 

 old man the older he becomes. In other words, after 

 having passed this critical age, man has more chance of 

 dying a natural death — that is to say, of crossing the 

 threshold of his centenary. What is the reason of tlnsr" 

 It is very simple. It often takes a man eighty vears of 

 experience to know how to direct the capacities of his 

 organism with precision. 



Alas ! I fear that few of us will live long enough to 

 put these lessons into practice. 



RACE SUICIDE 10R PROSPERITY? 



Mr. J. W. Barclay, writing in the Nineteenth 

 Century, stoutly traverses President Roosevelt's 

 theory that the decline in the birth-rate is due to 



deliberate limitation of families. He asks somewhat 

 pertinently, or impertinently: — 



Will President Roosevelt or the Bishop of London tell 

 us that the failure of the eighteen American peeresses to 

 have heirs was wilful, or deny them an eager desire to 

 have the glory of presenting their husbands with an heir 

 bo his title? According to Burke, one-fourth of the 

 peerages existing at the beginning of the last century 

 became extinct before its close — that is. within three 

 generations. 



The faet is. when men and women eat more they 

 breed less. You need to starve a nation if you want 

 to make it increase and multiply. The birth-rate 

 will always decrease when people get enough to eat. 

 The true law of population is not that of Malthus, 

 but oi 1 >oubleday, who, 



in a book entitled The True Law of Population," pub- 

 lished in 1341, advanced the proposition that the fecundity 

 Of the human animal and of all other living beings is in 

 inverse proportion to the auantity of nutriment; that an 

 underfed population multiplies rapidly, but that all classes 

 in comfortable circumstances are, by a physiological law, 

 so unproliftc as seldom to keep up their numbers without 

 being recruited from the poorer class. The law may he 

 briefly stated: In civilised countries the more severe the 

 struggle for existence the higher the birth-rate among 

 animals or plants, and the more they are protected in that. 

 struggle t he less their fertility. 



This law, by perpetually eliminating those who 

 have got to the top, makes room for those at the 

 bottom to rise. It also ensures our posterity in the 

 millennium against perishing for lack of food. 



Lord Kitchener and the Indian Government. 



Sir E. F. Law, replying to the article " Playing 

 with Fire/' in a recent number of the National 

 Review, complains of the conduct of Lord Curzon in 

 rriticising the recent change in Lord Kitchener's 

 position. He says: — 



The orders issued create an Army Department of the 

 Government of India, to be in charge of the Commander- 

 in-Chief in India as a Member of the Council of the 

 Governor-General, and assign to that Department some of 

 the departmental work hitherto administered in the Mili- 

 tary Department. It is hoped by this article to show that 

 the change in procedure (for that in fact is all that has 

 taken place) affected by the orders, so far from having 

 " profoundly " altered the constitution of the Government 

 of India, has in no respect set aside any essential prin- 

 ciple on which that Government has hitherto been con- 

 ducted, has not in the slightest degree interfered with 

 anv constitutional principle. Is it constitutional, is it 

 prudent, that these differences should be paraded before 

 the public, and that the Governor-General should publicly 

 appeal to the sympathy and support of the Civil Service 

 and the Army in India, in opposition to the great con- 

 stitutional authorities at home? 



