HUMAN LONGEVITY. 117 



comes into consideration the curious topic of comparative 

 longevity ; comprising questions of nations and races, civi- 

 lised and savage ; of successive periods in the history of the 

 world ; of families as well as individuals ; of sex, oc- 

 cupation, climate, food, and all other conditions pertaining 

 to human life. Volumes would be needed to follow these 

 matters into detail. M. Flourens touches upon them so 

 slightly and vaguely, that no aid is to be gathered from his 

 treatise. In our limited space we cannot bring them before 

 our readers otherwise than by selecting a few prominent 

 conclusions, serving to illustrate the main objects of enquiry, 

 and the methods best fitted for attaining them. Any attempt 

 to go beyond this would be perplexing and futile. 



It is natural to look first and it cannot be done without 

 interest at the records of longevity in former ages which 

 may be brought into comparison with those of our own time. 

 We have already indicated as the chief attainable results of 

 such enquiry, the general duration of what may be considered 

 the completed life of man, and the extreme cases of age 

 stretching beyond this mean term. For obvious reasons we 

 omit all reference to the length of antediluvian life, as we 

 receive it from the Scriptures. We could say nothing new 

 towards the solution of this question ; depending, as it does, 

 upon conditions and a state of the world to which no present 

 knowledge can apply. We turn with more assurance to 

 another record, (of later time, but also bearing in its super- 

 scription the great name of Moses), which, in, defining the 

 life of man at three-score years and ten, affords a measure 

 corresponding closely, as we have already seen, with the 

 every-day experience of our own age.* In the beautiful 



* It is worthy of remark, though doubtless familiar to many, that from the 

 time of Noah to the days of Moses and Joshua, the record is one of successive 

 and gradual decrease in longevity. Joshua ' waxed old and stricken in years' 

 some time before his death at 110 years. 



