142 HUMAN LONGEVITY. 



long antecedent to old age ; but especially perhaps to that 

 time when the faculty is first felt to decline in clearness 

 and power. Recollection (that is, the effort of the mind to 

 combine or extricate what is laid up in the memory, the 

 avd~iLvr)<ns of Aristotle) cannot be carried beyond a given 

 point without begetting a certain confusion of mind, hurtful 

 to the faculty itself, and probably to others also. The con- 

 sciousness of everyone will give proof of this; and at the 

 same time, if truly consulted, warning to avoid it. 



We cannot close this article without adverting to that 

 question, which at every period has been so variously agi- 

 tated, whether longevity be desirable, or not ? A momen- 

 tous enquiry indeed, if it really admitted of any determinate 

 answer. But none such can be given. The conditions are 

 far too- complex to warrant any general conclusion ; and 

 even in individual cases, and with direct appeal to those 

 concerned in the question, the difficulties are hardly over- 

 come. The feelings of one moment change at the next. 

 Even where their expression may be relied upon, longevity 

 itself is a vague term ; and rendered more so by the various 

 contingencies of health and power preserved, which alone 

 can give just measure of life or of the capacity to enjoy 

 it. The old man of 80, and he of 100, may be on a par as 

 to those conditions upon which we found our only valid 

 estimate for each. 



We must then receive with some allowance those writings, 

 eloquent though they may be, in which the cause of old age, 

 as such, is pleaded before us. Here the name and authority 

 of Cicero again come into view. Though we are unable, 

 with Montaigne, to say of his treatise 6 De Senectute,' ' il 

 donne Vappetit de vieillir,' we can well admire the fervour 

 with which he maintains his thesis, and the happy ingenuity 

 of his argument. Nor can we grudge him his eloquent 



