94, NATURAL HISTORY. 



ercise, whence could any benefit accrue from regimen, 

 and from abstinence ? Men, no doubt, there are who 

 have outlived the usual period of human existence. 

 Not to mention Parr, who lived to the age of one 

 hundred and fifty-two, and Jenkins, to that of one 

 hundred and sixty-nine, as recorded in the Philosophical 

 Transactions ; we have many instances of the prolong- 

 ation of life to one hundred and ten, and even to one 

 hundred and twenty years. Yet this longevity was 

 owing to no peculiar art or management. On the con- 

 trary, it appears, that the greater number of such long 

 livers were peasants accustomed to the greatest fatigues, 

 huntsmen, or labourers ; men, in fact, who had em- 

 ployed their whole bodily strength, and even abused 

 it, if it be possible to abuse it by any thing but by con- 

 tinual idleness and debauchery. 



If in the duration of life there is any difference to be 

 found, it seems proper to ascribe it to the quality of the 

 air. In elevated situations, old people are more generally 

 found than in low ones. In the mountains of Scotland 

 and Wales, Auvergne and Switzerland, there have been 

 more instances of extreme longevity than in the plains 

 of Holland or Flanders, of Germany or Poland. Hu- 

 man life is however nearly the same in every country. 

 Accidental distress excepted, the common verge of ex- 

 istence is ninety or an hundred years, which has been 

 the case since the days of David, without much vari- 

 ation. 



The following table of the probabilities of human life 

 has been compiled from a careful examination of many 

 country registers of burials in France, compared will* 

 the mortality bills of Paris. 



