ANTAEUS THE GIANT. 581 



dition as regards these relations "now, is met by a sudden and 

 humiliating conviction of the awful dilapidation that has 

 taken place in the social fabric. It is impossible for the 

 present age is .flatter itself into the contrary opinion. As 

 the accumulation of literature, which is stored up in the 

 huge intellectual magazine into which the world has grown, 

 and the multiplied facilities of modern education, which a 

 long experience has secured, are no proofs that we are rela- 

 tively increasing in strength of mind; so our concentrated 

 facilities and stupendous triumphs of bodily labor are no 

 proofs that we are relatively increasing in physical energy. 

 On the contrary, when we look back with an impartial eye 

 on the severity and unbending morality, the refinement in 

 taste and sentiment, the mental and physical vigor, so com- 

 mon among the ancient Egyptians, Athenians, and Romans, 

 as evinced at the present day, in monuments that have de- 

 fied the wreck of time and the vandalism of ages, and then 

 make allowances for our advantages, we are penetrated with 

 an irresistible .sense of relative inferiority, and can no 

 longer boast of our march of intellect and our splendid 

 achievements. Under these circumstances, it is clearly the 

 duty of every member of society to exert any influence he 

 may happen to possess to avert this impending calamity, 

 and if he have a mite of information on its removable causes, 

 to give it free publicity."* 



The comparative longevity of the ancients and moderns 

 thus becomes a question of vital interest. [Passing the 

 fables of primitive giants, we come to the recorded word 

 on the longevity of man, and Methuselah and Jared, Noah 

 and Adam, stand the great plus affirmations. "Haller 

 and Buffon both admit the possibility of long life before 

 the deluge. The fact admitted, Buffon hastens to explain 

 it by a system. Haller limits himself by quoting the sys- 

 tem of Buffon and some others. We are acquainted with 

 the system of Buffon. Before the deluge, the earth was 

 less solid and compact than at present, because gravity had 

 * Griscom, "Uses and Abuses of Air." 

 49* 



