VI CENTENARIANISM 229 



ages : had they managed to pass the one fatal corner 

 where they fell, the whole road would have been clear 

 for a hundred years. 



Regarding then, as we do, centenarians as in- 

 stances of extreme or " abnormal longevity," of which 

 it is worth remarking we have two forms, the abnor- 

 mally small l and the abnormally great, we can see no 

 reason for fixing the limit of the abnormally great at 

 one hundred years, as Sir George Cornewall Lewis 

 was at one time inclined to do, nor even at one 

 hundred and three or four, to which limit he was 

 afterwards induced to advance. Our a priori impres- 

 sions are distinctly in favour of a much wider limit, 

 reaching perhaps, in the very rarest cases, to the one 

 hundred and fifty years attributed to some celebrities, 

 such as Old Parr, Henry Jenkins, and the Countesses 

 of Desmond and Eccleston. Indeed, the great 

 German, Haller, has uttered what is probably the 

 truest dictum yet put forward in the matter : " The 

 ultimate limit of human life does not exceed two 

 centuries : to fix the exact number of years is exceed- 

 ingly difficult." 



When an unusually well-attested case of centen- 

 arianism turns up as, for instance, the recent one of 

 Mr. Luning, at Morden College, Blackheath, the 

 newspapers and journals always bring in the late Sir 

 George Cornewall Lewis, attribute certain opinions to 

 him, and demolish them by aid of the new case. 



1 An instance was not long since recorded in one of the medical 

 journals of a child which ceased to grow and commenced to exhibit 

 signs of senile decay at the age of ten years. 



