Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 263 



f^rown into public favor that ought to he able to decide upon the 

 probable limits of life with more certainty than has hitherto character- 

 ized tables of expectancy, probable longevity, and some other guess- 

 work assumptions in the department of vital statistics. 



With the records of centuries, and the collected observations of 

 careful students who have earnestly interrogated nature with a hope 

 cjf ascertaining how she gauges the lives of males and females, and 

 by what signs the secret ma}' be brought to light, that will invariably 

 point to the positive day of death, it is still too much left to conjecture 

 and theoretical speculating. 



By referring to Goldsmith's I^atural History, a work quite obsolete 

 and perhaps out of print, but which, nevertheless abounds with curious 

 statements, a pretty correct mortuary table may be found which 

 chronicles the life-period of animals with which we are not familiar. 

 It is quite evident, in the very constitution of things, long life was 

 never intended for those Avhich multiply rapidly and mature in one, 

 two, or three years. Were they to exist as long as man, the surface 

 of the earth would not accommodate the irresponsible myriads, nor 

 food be produced in sufficient abundance to meet their necessities. 

 It is, therefore, in accordance with a Divine arrangement, which con- 

 templates the greatest amount of happiness for all, that a law of 

 limitation iixes unalterable boundaries for life in all races, types, and 

 forms of organized beings. To this decree man must submit. With such 

 facts before us — and they have been recognized by learned naturalists 

 for ages — it is strange indeed that it has not yet been ascertained to 

 what length of life our .own race may attain. Thomas Parr mari'ied 

 at eighty for the first time, and lived to 152 years — left a grandson who 

 died at 12-i. This demonstrates an actual transmission of vitality ; 

 but Henry Jenkins — a still more remarkable example of longevity 

 in modern times — reached the patriarchal age of 1G9. But this by 

 no means determines the duration of human life. It seems to have 

 been a received opinion in the time of King David that serenty years 

 was the ordinary measure of human existence. Any years beyond are 

 poetically represented as unsatisfactory and burdened with infirmities. 

 The difi'erence, therefore, between the ages of the patriarchs of the 

 Jewish nation and of men in the most flourishing period of Jewish 

 nationalty was very striking. Moses died at 110, and his natural 

 forces, says the chronicle, were not abated. Ilufeland believed the 

 duration of human life might be about 200 years. With an experience 

 of 6,000 years — the problem is an unsolved one — it has not been deter- 

 mined how lono; we could live. 



