LETTER XXIV.

Longevity made a Natural Property of Human Nature.-At present increasing in frequency.-Not attended naturally with Decay of Facul ties.-Instances of its Efficiency.—Distinguished Men among the Ancients who were Aged.

MY DEAR SON,

We are entitled, by the preceding facts, to believe that longevity is one of the natural qualities of the human body, in its material composition, during that association of our mind with it which constitutes our human life. The mind itself being indestructible by our present death, would subsist for a thousand years, or for an endless succession of time, if its bodily organizations had been framed to last so long. Not merely longevity, but perpetuity of existence, is one of the essential properties of the human soul. No power but its Maker's, and no act but the exertion of his omnipotence, can extinguish that. But the residence which has been assigned to it on this globe is meant to be only for a time; and its body has been so formed as to be either a long or brief companion to it. The union of the soul with it here is of the same temporary character. The chronology of this union, and of the duration of the bodily compound, is therefore concurrent, and begins and ends with both at the same periods. Birth commences and death terminates it. But the soul is no servant of time; to this its origin appertained; but, once brought into being, it belongs to time no longer. It was created to be a member and an inheritor of eternity; and, with this relation, it lives through its journey here, and afterward passes elsewhere, with the same inalienable, undying property. Hence any extent of longevity in this world is but a dramatic section of its everlasting history and activity. We are all actors here, in our present human figures, during the scenes through which we pass; but, like all those who personate the parts allotted to them in our tragedies or comedies, we leave the stage and audience before whom we have been appearing for other employments, for another home, and for a different kind of happiness, or the contrary, in some other place of its

abode, as may be allotted to us. Our longevity, therefore, here, is a question only of our bodily incorporation and earthly residence, not of the existence of our intellectual principle itself; that still lives in undiminished vitality, although the body had dissolved and evaporated into the million particles of which it was compounded.*

But, although endless longevity is the created property of the soul, and its duration on earth between one and two centuries is a natural possibility to its bodily frame and to its union with this, yet, like some other properties and possibilities of our human life and corporeal composition, it is but rarely brought into operation during our present existence. It is neither made nor meant to be, at present, a general law, whatever it may be intended to become in some series of our posterity. We have several bodily properties which do but partially evolve and show themselves. Gigantic stature is one of these possibilities. We read of giants in Scripture: I have seen two myself, and some are mentioned by Dr. Adam Clarke, with whom he was acquainted. They occur at all times occasionally among us ; but it is not the will of Providence that they should be frequent, and therefore the powers and functions of the body which lead to procerity are so repressed and governed by other instrumentalities, that the larger quantity of mankind are only of the middle size; a proportion only are

* You may like to read the celebrated Dr. Franklin's feeling as to his body and soul. In 1756 he wrote, on the death of his father, to a friend "We have lost a most dear and valuable relation; but it is the will of God and nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside when the soul is to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state-a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he is dead. Why, then, should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals-a new member added to their happy society? WE ARE SPIRITS. That bodies should be lent us while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow-creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, it is equally kind that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way."-Dr. Franklin's Private Works, vol. ii., p. 4.

† One was between seven and eight feet, the other between eight and nine.

Dr. Adam Clarke, in his life of himself, states that he knew two brothers named Knight, near his father's house in Ireland, of great strength, and each seven and a half feet high; and also one, Charles Burns, who measured eight feet six inches, and was well proportioned.

Thus, the following notice was in the "Glamorgan Gazette" of Oct. 1, 1836-"A native of the village of La Reid, in Belgium, who was drummajor in the army of the Netherlands in 1828, is now at Parma, and has grown to the height of eight feet four inches."

tall, and the gigantic stature in others is not in a greater ratio than the great longevity of the human frame which we are now contemplating.

Bodily strength is also another quality which some persons have possessed in an extraordinary degree, and which is therefore always a possibility in human nature on earth.* But this has been also imparted with such rarity, that it is not more common than the usual proportions above mentioned.† Of the same description is the maternal power of reproduction. This can occur in a degree so large as to seem preternatural. But it is not more so than great longevity, gigantic magnitude, and extraordinary strength. It is only a demonstration that the latent natural possibility exists, but is always so governed as to be, in its general course, kept in the habitual tenour of a single birth, with twins at times, in no large proportion. Plutarch thought he had mentioned the largest

*Two of the family of Adam, who, on Christian's mutiny, had settled in Pitcairn's Island, acquired there such muscular power, that each carried at one time, without inconvenience, a kedge anchor, two sledge hammers, and an armorer's anvil, amounting to above six hundred weight. One of them carried a boat twenty-eight feet long.-Beechey's Voy., vol. i., p. 125. At the ironworks at Merthyr Tydvil, a young man in June, 1832, raised up from the ground at once three pieces of iron weighing five hundred and forty pounds.-Moum. Merlin, June, 1832. On 13th August, 1832, John Williams, a waterman of Waterloo bridge, rowed for a wager thence to Gravesend and back, up to Richmond and returned, being ninety-six miles, in eleven hours and a half.-Public Papers, 14th of August, 1832. The Rev. J. M'Lean, one of Dr. Clarke's uncles, could bend iron bars with a stroke of his arm, and roll up pewter dishes like a scroll with his fingers.-Dr. Adam Clarke's Life.

It is a curious fact, mentioned by the diver employed in 1832 at Yarmouth to get up the treasure of the Guernsey, lately sunk there, that "when under water he finds his strenghth so increased that he can bend together the ends of the large iron crowbar, three and a half feet long and two inches and a half in size, which he takes with him."-Public Papers, 14th August, 1832.

† In a French periodical, in July, 1836, was this paragraph-"At Riom les Montagnes, in the Cantal, there is a man aged twenty-nine of Herculean strength. He can raise a burden weighing 2000 lbs., and with the third finger of the right hand can lift up two hundred lbs. He has a brother aged twenty-three, and a sister of twenty-five, of nearly equal strength. They are all very mild in character, and are occupied in farming." In 1789, Philip Wess, a soldier at Antwerp, died aged one hundred and four. He was so strong that, at seventy-three years of age, he lifted a butt of beer into a cart without the least trouble.-Easton, p. 222.

It has been calculated that twins occur at an average about once in every eighty births.

extent of offspring from one parturition when he stated five to be the boundary. In modern times, however, one instance occurred in which a mother lay-in with eight. All these facts concur to show that the course and agencies of human life are under a strict and adjusted regulation by the Creator, which constantly modifies the natural power and possibility into that well-graduated operation which suits his appointed scheme of human existence on earth, in its present stages and generations. Longevity is thus governed, allowed, and allotted, and appears only in minor proportions, but with such universality as to place, climate, and person, as to show that it is possible to all, though as yet granted but to very few.

One of the reasons for which these extraordinary operations of the laws and systems of our nature are sometimes allowed to occur, may be, to give thereby an impressive testimony how carefully governed all the functions of our body are, that they may execute with accuracy the plan of our intended life, and carry it on steadily in its appointed course. They show how needed a strong and watchful regulation is of the laws that produce our life and growth, and their results; for, without this constant government and adaptation of them, the preternatural phenomena, from the unruled powers and properties of our body, would be so frequent as to confuse and disorder; and to make that confidence in the regular recurrence and sequences of things impossible on which our foresight, and prudence, and even scientific calculations are founded. Hence, though in our limbs extraordinary additions may occur, if the growing powers of the organized vessels in the hands and feet were unrestrained, they are always so governed, by means of which we are ignorant, that their possibilities of increase are kept in perpetual restriction, and only five fingers and five toes become the universal formation. More than these are but a very rare anomaly; though, from occurring in some instances,

*Plutarch, in the second of his Roman questions, inquiring why they lighted five torches at a wedding, gives as one reason of it that light is a symbol of life, and that a woman may bear at the most five children at one parturition.

† An authenticated case occurred in Lancashire of four at a birth. Dr. Garthshore has added to the account of this, in the "Philosophical Transactions," several examples of numerous births recorded by medical authors. One of them was an instance of eight children born at one lying-in. Of these one grew up to manhood, and was alive when the statement was written of it.-Phil. Trans., 1787, vol. lxxvii., p. 344.

their possibility at all times, and the agency which limits it, are thus manifested to our senses.* All these unusual incidents are therefore speaking evidence to us that the laws and agencies of life must be daily controlled and governed by the skilful administration of an intelligent power, acting upon a deliberate and well-adjusted plan, by which the operation of every law is confined to produce that specific effect which suits the system and intended results of all the rest, and prevents it from every other degree or direction of action that would occasion different consequences to occur.

But whenever an increase of the action or result of any laws of nature will be beneficial to mankind, and the period arrives when it is intended that they shall have this advantage, then the restriction which before prevented the augmented operation is relaxed, and nature is permitted to exert her properties and powers to that larger result by which a further advantage will accrue to the human race. I consider longevity to be one of the Divine blessings to man which is at present undergoing a permitted enlargement of this kind. Human life seems to have received a fiat, both for its greater duration and salubrity, ever since the present century began. In our own country it has been perceived that the length of life in all its classes is increasing, and the extreme periods of its longevity may be expected to partake of the general prolongation. On the natural grounds this would be a rational inference, but the improvement is an indication to us that an augmented benefaction in these respects has descended from the Creator on mankind. If the life of this human world has received an increase, it is by him that the benediction has been conferred, as he alone has the power; and all life subsists only by his will and according to his plan. I do not mean to say that the longevity of mankind is extending in its duration, but it is multiplying in its individual frequency: and this opens to all so much hope and prospect of partaking of the advantage, as to encourage those who value it to endeavour, by a wise use of serviceable means, to be themselves the possessors of it. For this reason I will take a larger view of the

* Thus, in 1764, Owen Carollan, of Duleek, in the county of Meath, died at one hundred and twenty-seven years old He had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot-Easton, p. 79. It has been stated that there is a family in Austria in which this number of fingers and toes has been reproduced for several generations.