22O Epidemics. 



either hear it or read it ; and, again, because very few read 

 that Book straight through as they do other books, but, as 

 it were, in detached fragments and unconnected paragraphs, 

 especially at that time,*when the intellect is best fitted to 

 examine its worth and real merit, as from twenty to thirty 

 years of age. Hence, from these two causes, chiefly, the 

 Bible is rejected as a book of high authority by many 

 learned and able men, by which means our best authority 

 is very much laid on one side. 



If, then, in recognizing a withering and blighting epi- 

 demium which cast its pall upon the entire family of man- 

 kind, and in 800 years, more or less, reduced the duration of 

 life from 400 years to 70 years of age, it is possible to dis- 

 cover that the past records of mankind leave us a trace of 

 this great change in relation to the duration of life, it will be 

 all-important a change which, if true, must have destroyed 

 entire species of animals whose powers of endurance, through 

 many changes, is less persistent than those of man, chiefly 

 from man being a clothing animal, and capable, in a great 

 measure, of creating his own external circumstances. 



Of this Chronographic Epidemium there are some few but 

 faint traces, but no great attempt will be made at proving 

 them, each person being savoured with a sufficient amount 

 of scepticism to allow his faith in old records to be but 

 little influenced by the general tenour which their real, or 

 supposed teaching may suggest, until we launch into the 

 pre-historic age of mankind ; when thoughts can add wings 

 to their wearied journey, and in a few short pages we can 

 contemplate mankind as huntsmen, worm-diggers, snail- 

 eaters, and general consumers of vermin and vegetables \ 

 feeble, imbecile, incapable of much physical exertion, and 

 standing up to fight their own way in the midst of forests 

 teeming with wild beasts and creeping things, swamps and 

 jungles, and every vicissitude of weather ; and, last of all, 



