114 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



that the conditions of modern life in civilized coun- 

 tries do not give the best opportunity to test the 

 question of the maximal limits of life. The seden- 

 tary habits and the competitions incident to such life 

 stand in the way of anything like a fair test. For 

 this reason, it would well repay the government of 

 any great nation, as, for instance, the United States, 

 to inaugurate a well-planned and extensive experi- 

 ment in longevity by placing a group of selected 

 persons under conditions that would permit the 

 utmost prolongation of the machinery of life. Such 

 a trial I regard as practicable and capable of yield- 

 ing results of such value as would more than com- 

 pensate the expense to which the nation would be 

 put. The long trial would end in establishing a 

 standard of attainable longevity under ideal condi- 

 tions. The value of such a standard would lie in the 

 fact that every individual would see before him the 

 possible results of life under favorable conditions, 

 and many members of the community would cer- 

 tainly have sufficient intelligence to strive to secure 

 these conditions. For as men grow more thought- 

 ful, they prize increasingly the mental life, and 

 desire to prolong that period of life in which the 

 spiritual experiences are dominant. At present 

 the conditions of ordinary life are not, in general, 

 ideally favorable to the prolongation of life, but it 

 cannot be doubted that a large body of citizens, 

 united in the serious wish to favor social changes 

 looking directly and indirectly to the lengthening 



