Biology 699 



Such work, however, promises at best an increase of the 

 span of life. Death is bound to come at last. In this connection 

 the work of the great Russian scientist Metchnikoff should be 

 remembered. He investigated all the cases which he could find 

 (and they are relatively uncommon) of men and women who 

 died a really natural death, of pure old age uncomplicated by 

 disease or accident. And, as a result, he asserted that such a 

 death is really natural that it is not painful, and what is more, 

 that it is not dreaded, but looked forward to as one sleeps after 

 a long day. Finally, he asserted what would be difficult to 

 deny that nine-tenths of the accidents and diseases that beset 

 mankind could be prevented ; and if they were, then natural death, 

 instead of being the accidental fortune of a few, would be the 

 birthright of our average humanity. 



In matters biological, we are only just emerging from the 

 age of mythology, through a period of observation, into one of 

 experiment; and this in its turn is opening up vistas of future 

 control, hitherto undreamt of, over the processes of life itself. In 

 the little domain with which we have been dealing, we can see 

 clearly held out to us, as the reward of patient labour, the possi- 

 bility of prolonging the normal life of man, and of robbing 

 death, which so often shadows human thoughts, of the worst of 

 its terrors. 



(The problem of Heredity and Mendelism was discussed 

 in the chapter, "How Darwinism Stands To-day.") 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



CHILD, Individuality in Organisms (Chicago, 1915). 

 HUXLEY, The Individual in the Animal Kingdom (Cambridge, 1912). 

 METCHNIKOFF, The Prolongation of Life (London, 1910). 

 MINOT, The Problem of Age, Growth, and Death (London, 1908). 

 MORGAN, Regeneration (London and New York, 1901). 



