62 EX VIRIBUS VIVIMUS. 



We now present Lord Bacon's statements on the 

 subject, which we have transcribed from a well- 

 known translation of his works. Truth and error 

 are strangely mixed in this interesting summary. 



' Touching the length and shortness of life in living 

 creatures, the information which may be had is but 

 slender, observation is negligent, and tradition fabu- 

 lous. In tame creatures their degenerate life cor- 

 rupteth them, in wild creatures their exposing to all 

 weathers often intercepteth them ; neither do those 

 things which may seem concomitants give any fur- 

 therance to this information (the greatness of their 

 bodies, their time of bearing in the womb, the number 

 of their young ones, the time of their growth, and the 

 rest), in regard that these things are intermixed, and 

 sometimes they concur, sometimes they sever. 



I. Man's age (as far as can be gathered by any 

 certain narration) doth exceed the age of all other 

 living creatures, except it be of a few only, and the 

 concomitants in him are very equally disposed, his 

 stature and proportion large, his bearing in the womb 

 nine months, his fruit commonly one at a birth, his 

 puberty at the age of fourteen years, his time of 

 growing till twenty. 



a. The elephant, by undoubted relation, exceeds 

 the ordinary race of man's life, but his bearing in the 

 womb the space of ten. years is fabulous ; of two 

 years, or at least above one is, certain. Now his bulk 



