HUMAN LONGEVITY. 131 



it was well said on the morrow of his death, that he had 

 exhausted nature as he had exhausted glory. And to the 

 same generation belong the names of Lansdowne, Lyndhurst, 

 and Brougham, still maintaining, under weight of years, 

 the native vigour of mind, eloquence, and ability which have 

 marked every stage of their career. But, after all, such cases 

 interpret only individualities of temperament, and afford no 

 answer to the general question. The same is true in the 

 case of literary and scientific men. We might quote the 

 instances of Hobbes, Voltaire, Fontenelle, Heyne, Groethe, 

 Newton, Kepler, Halley, Cassini, Maria- Agnesi, Humboldt, 

 and others, all reaching ages between 80 and 100; but we 

 can venture no general affirmation grounded upon a few 

 examples of this kind. 



From these topics we pass to another of close affinity with 

 them, viz. the influence of those passions, cares, and excesses 

 of mind which belong to the strange and fitful history of 

 human life ; and affect every part of it, from very infancy to 

 the extremity of age. It would not be easy to estimate the 

 relative influence of moral and purely physical causes upon 

 longevity. They are so mutually consequent upon one 

 another, so interwoven in all ways, that reason is perpetually 

 at fault in seeking to distinguish their effects. What we 

 have hitherto been discussing are chiefly facts, measured 

 more or less exactly by numbers and tables. The topic to 

 which we now allude cannot be reduced under any formu- 

 laries, and is indeed not easily rescued from those common- 

 place maxims which have currency in the world. That the 

 passions and anxieties of life, if protracted or in excess, do 

 more or less tend to shorten its duration, either by chronic 

 impairment of health or by sudden injury to some vital 

 organ, is a truth too well known to require argument. And 

 deep though the interest of the subject is, we can give only 

 a passing notice to it. 



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