56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



when nearing three score and ten." Despite dyspepsia and a sus- 

 ceptibility to erysipelas he always possessed " an unusual amount of 

 physical energy." Verdi is another example — the old-man-progressive 

 produced his greatest works after he was seventy, his " Otello " being 

 first performed when he was eighty. 



The executive musician especially needs a good physical balance, 

 for the strain upon his nervous system is very great. We find no 

 invalids in the list of great singers. Liszt, Rubinstein and Paderewski 

 were physically strong and robust, while Joachim and Ole Bull were 

 men of long, healthful and vigorous life. A partial exception to the 

 rule is met with in that strange personage Paganini, the severity of 

 whose early training damaged an already frail constitution. He was 

 extremely temperate and had a marvelous use of muscle and nerve in 

 the weaving of his musical magic. He died at fifty-six. 



When it comes to the philosophers, among the ancients we must 

 include Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. From what has come down to 

 us we know that Socrates served as a hoplite, or heavy foot soldier, and 

 that in more than one campaign he was conspicuous for both bravery 

 and endurance. He was short, thick-necked and corpulent, although 

 thoroughly schooled to temperance. He was evidently as finely robust 

 physically as morally, until his untimely death at the age of sixty-six. 



Of Plato we are positive only that he lived to be seventy years of 

 age. From his writings we know how greatly he appreciated bodily 

 development and well-working. 



Of the details of Aristotle's life we know little, but there is no evi- 

 dence to signify that he was not always in at least fair health, and it 

 would seem from the amount of his work that he must have been a man 

 of great vitality. 



Philosophy does not seem to have agreed so well with the moderns, 

 and it seems to have fitted better into inferior somatic conditions than 

 a combination of brain and handiwork as in the artists and musicians. 

 Hobbes was an enthusiastic tennis player until beyond seventy and 

 wielded his pen vigorously after he was ninety. J. S. Mill was " healthy 

 and high spirited." Comte, Leibnitz, and, after his youth, Descartes, 

 were all in fair health and strength, but Locke, Spinoza and Kant 

 could not boast such physique. Of the three, Spinoza alone was short 

 lived, Locke living to the age of seventy-two and Kant to that of eighty. 



Spinoza, always of delicate constitution, was early afflicted with 

 pulmonary disease and suffered also from ague. He was extremely 

 abstemious, which did not tend to improve his condition, but it was not 

 until he was forty that he became a confirmed invalid. In Locke's case 

 prudent habits seem to have kept a delicate constitution in even balance 

 of health up to the age of thirty-five, but from this time on, with all 

 his care of himself, he was seriously handicapped by complicated and 



