The Duration of Man's Life.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 4310, 15 March 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Duration of Man's Life.

To ascertain how long a man should live, the learned rea.-on from analogy. The duration of life with the horse, and with other animals of the higher species, is proportionate to the time expended in their growth. Tho learned and ingenious Flourens has improved on the workine out of this idea suggested by Buffon. AH the larger animals, he observes, live fivo times as long as the time expended by them in reaching maturity. Thus:— The camel growa 8 ycaraand lives -JO. The horso .. 5 ~ ~ 25' The ox .. 1 ~ „ 15 or 20 The lion ~ 5 ~ ~20 Tho dog „ 2 „ ~ 10 or 12 The man .. 20 ~ „ 100 or more. By a physical analogy, therefore, the ordinary life of a man should be a hundred years at least. Dr. Farre.in his examination before the Parliamentary Committee on Drunkenness, gave it as his opinion that "by the last grant of Providence to man (Gen. C, 3) his life is 120' years, and that, where disease arising from other causes does not shorten it, the reason why so few attain to that age is te be found in the excessive stimulation to which the mass of the community is continually subject." " Tho popular opinion," observed the Row \V. R. Baker, " that the natural duration of human life is seventyyears is founded on a misunderstanding of a passage in tho 90th Psalm, where it is indeed stated ' the days of pur years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they bo fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow.' Now.it must ba remembered that this psalm is ascribed to Moses, and that he is not speaking of the lives of men in general, but of what was occurring among tho Israelites in the Wilderness. His own life, as well as the lives of the more eminent of his brethren, was far more extended than even fourscore years; and aa he complains of the people b=ing_ cut off through the displeasure of God, it is reasonable to conclude that he is not alluding to the period during which men were living, but simply to the fact that owing to tho judgments of the Almighty which befel the Israelites on account of their sins, but few of them attained a more lengthened existence than that of seventy or eighty years. 'For we aro consumed,'he says,' by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.' They did notdieanaturaldeath, but were cut oft'for their sinsand unbelief by judicial dispensations." — W. U., Bedington, in the "Newcastle Weekly Chronicle."