446 



did the men of former times live longer than those of our own? This is 

 very improbable : among the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Greeks, and 

 Romans, there were very few instances of persons living to the age of a 

 hundred years, and instances of longevity are perhaps more frequent 

 among the moderns. 



The art of providing for the wants of life, making daily progress, it is 

 very probable, that far from being shortened, the term of human life may 

 be lengthened a certain number of years beyond its ordinary duration. 

 This idea is, it-is true, contrary to the commonly received opinion of the 

 progressive depravity of mankind in all ages ; but the golden age never 

 existed but in the imagination of poets., and the daily complaints of mo- 

 rose old age have their origin in motives easily understood by the phy- 

 siologist. He whose sentiment is blunted by a long course of years, is 

 affected, in a very different manner, by surrounding objects. As to the 

 old man, flowers have lost their scent and beauty, fruits no longer retain 

 their flavour. The whole of nature seems dull and colourless. But the 

 cause of all these changes is within himself, every thing else remains as 

 it was. Always equally fruitful, Nature exposes every thing to the action 

 of her inexhaustible crucible ; maintains every thing in a state of ever- 

 lasting youth, and preserves a freshness ever renewed. Individuals die, 

 opecies are renovated : life every where arises in the midst of death. The 

 materials of organized bodies enter into new combinations, and serve in 

 forming new beings, when life ceasing to animate those to which they be- 

 longed, putrefaction seizes upon them, and effects their destruction. 



CCXLII. Of putrefaction. Here the history of life ought to termi- 

 nate; if, however, it be considered that the changes which bodies expe- 

 rience, after death, throw a considerable light on its means, its ends, 

 and its nature, there will be an obvious necessity for shortly inquiring 

 Into the different phenomena which accompany the decomposition of 

 animal substances. And this investigation appears to me to belong to 

 the department of physiology, until the aspect of the body ceases to re- 

 call the idea of its former state, and until the last lineaments of organi- 

 zation are completely effaced. As soon as life forsakes our organs, they 

 become subject to the laws of physics., operating upon substances that are 

 not organized. An inward motion takes place within their substance. 

 and their molecules have the greater tendency to become separated from 

 one another, as their composition is more advanced. Chemistry informs 

 us that the tendency to decomposition of bodies is in direct ratio to the 

 number of their elements, and that a dead animal body is capable of re- 

 maining unchanged, in proportion as its composition is more simple, and 

 its constituent principles less numerous and less volatile. 



Before putrefaction can come on in the human body, it must be en- 

 tirely deprived of life, for the vital powers are most powerfully antisep- 

 tic, and one might say that life is a continued struggle against the laws 

 of physics and chemistry. This vital resistance, alluded to by the ancients 

 when they said, that the laws of microcosm were in perpetual opposition 

 to those of the universal world, and that these, in the end, prevailed; this 

 power, which is in a state of perpetual re-action, manifests itself in life : 

 the latter, considering only the results, might, therefore, be defined as 

 follows : the resistance ofiposed by organic bodies to the causes incessantly 

 tending to their destruction. By attending to all these phenomena, it will 

 be seen that all of them tend to one end, the preservation of the body, 

 and that they obtain it, by keeping up a perpetual struggle with the laws 

 which govern inorganic substances. 



