LONGEVITY.
By W.F. Ainsworth, F.S.A.
Disdain of the inevitable end is said to be the finest trait of mankind. Some profess to be weary of life, of its pains and penalties, its anxieties and sufferings, and to look upon death as a relief. Such states of mind are not real; they are either assumed or affected. No one can really hold the unsparing leveller—dreaded of all—in contempt. As to pretended wearisomeness of life, laying aside the love of life and fear of death, which are common to all mankind, there are habits and ties of affection, joys and hopes that never depart from us and make us cling to existence.
There are, no doubt, pains and sufferings which make many almost wish for the time being for death as a release; but these pass away. Time assuages all grief, as Nature relieves suffering beyond endurance by fainting and insensibility. Man may nerve himself to death or become resigned to it and meet it even with cheerfulness; and he may, in all sincerity of heart, offer up his life to his Maker to save that of a beloved one; but there is a latent—an unacknowledged—yet an irrepressible reserve in such frames of mind.
Few men can prepare for death, or offer themselves up for a sacrifice, without feelings of a mixed nature playing a part in the act; whether forced or springing from self-abnegation. As to suicide, it is inevitably accompanied by certain—albeit various and different—degrees of mental alienation or disease. No one who is in a really healthy state of mind, whose faculties are perfectly balanced, or who is at peace with God and man, commits suicide. The temporary exaltation of grief, despondency or disappointment produces as utter a state of insanity as disease itself.
Man, as a rule, desires to live. It is part of his nature to do so; and exceptions to the rule are rare and unnatural—so much so that they in all cases imply a certain degree of mental alienation. Even the weariness, lassitude and despondency which lead some to talk of death as a release is mainly to be met with in the pampered and the idle. Such feelings, no doubt, take possession also of the poor and the lowly; but that, mostly, when there is no work or no incitement to it. There is always joy and happiness in work and in doing one's duty.
It is then the normal condition to wish to live, and a most abnormal one to wish to die; and with many there is even a further aspiration, and that is to prolong a life which, with all its drawbacks, is to so many a desirable state of things.
Examples of rare longevity are carefully treasured up and even placed on record. As whenever a human being is carried away, causes from which we are supposed to be free, or against which we take precautions, are complacently sought for, so instances of longevity are studied to discover what habits and manners, what system of diet, or conduct, and which environing circumstances, have most tended to ensure such a result.
Numerous treatises have been written on the subject, both in this country and on the continent; but it cannot be said that the result has been eminently satisfactory. When carefully inquired into, it has been found that the most contradictory state of things has been in existence. It is not always to the strong that long life is given, nor is such, as often supposed, hereditary. Riches and the comforts and luxuries they place at man's disposal no more conduce to long life than poverty. Even moderation and temperance, so universally admitted as essentials to health and long life, are found to have their exceptions in well-attested cases of prolongation of life with the luxurious and self-indulgent and even in the intemperate and the inebriate. Strange to say, even health is not always conducive to long life. There is a common proverb (and most proverbs are founded upon experience) about creaking hinges, and so it is that people always ailing have been known to live longer than the strong, the hearty, and the healthy. The latter have overtaxed their strength, their spirits, and their health. Even vitality itself, stronger in some than others, may in excess conduce to the premature wearing out and decay of the faculties and powers.
It is not surprising, then, that great difficulties have had to be encountered in fixing any general laws by which longevity can be assured; yet such are in existence, and like all the gracious gifts of a most merciful Creator, are at the easy command and disposal of mankind.
They are to be found in implicit obedience to the Laws of God and Nature. These imply the use and not the misuse or abuse of all the powers and faculties given to us by an all-wise and all-merciful Providence. If human beings would only abide by these laws they would not only enjoy long health and long life but they would also pass that life in comfort and happiness.
With respect to the physical, intellectual and moral man, work is the essential factor in procuring health and happiness. Idleness is the bane of both. Man and woman were born to work either by hand or brain. Man in the outer world, woman in the home. The man who lives without an object in life is not only not doing his duty to God, but he is a curse to himself and others. But work, like everything else, should be limited. Many cannot do this, and overtax both their physical and intellectual energies. The employment of labour should be regulated by the capabilities of the working-classes, not by the economy or profits to be obtained by extra labour; and legislation, if paternal, as it should be, ought to protect the toiler in all instances—not in the few in which it attempts to ameliorate his condition. So with every pursuit or avocation, the leisure essential to health and happiness is too often sacrificed to cupidity, and when this is the case there can be no longevity.
Exercise is beneficial to man; but it should not be taken in excess, or in too trying a form. It is very questionable if what are called "Athletic Sports" are not too often as hurtful as they are beneficial. It is quite certain that they cannot be indulged in with impunity after a certain time of life.
Sustenance is essential alike to life and longevity, but it is trite to say it must be in moderation, and as far as possible select. So in the case of temperance, moderation is beneficial, excess hurtful. Total abstainers defeat the very object they propose to advocate when they propose to do away with all because excess is hurtful. Extremes are always baneful, and the monks of old were wise in their generation when they denounced gluttony and intemperance as cardinal vices. The physical powers are as a rule subject to the will, which is the exponent of our passions and propensities and of our moral and intellectual impulses. Were it not so we could not curb our actions, restrain our appetites, or keep within that moderation which is essential to health, happiness and longevity.
Our passions and propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she would be lost."
Even our affections, so pure and beautiful in themselves, may, by abuse, be made sources of mischief, evil and disease. The abuses are too well known to require repetition here. The powers of energy and resistance, beneficial in themselves, in their abuse bring about the spirit of contradiction, violence and combat.
It seems passing strange that even our moral feelings should be liable to abuse; but it is so, even with the best. Benevolence and charity may be misplaced or be in excess of our means. They assume the shape of vices in the form of prodigality and extravagance. The honest desire to acquire the necessities of life or the means for moral and intellectual improvement may in excess become cupidity or covetousness, and lead even to the appropriation of what is not our own. Kleptomania is met with in the book-worm or the antiquarian, as well as in the feminine lover of dress or those in poverty and distress. Firmness may become obstinacy; the justifiable love of self may, by abuse, become pride; and a proper and chaste wish for the approbation of others may be turned into the most absurd of vanities. Even religion itself may be carried to uncharitableness, fanaticism and persecution. Still more strange it must appear that even the intellectual faculties should be liable to abuse; but it is part of the pains and penalties of the constitution of man that it should be so. It is so to teach us that moderation is wisdom and the only conduct that leads to health and happiness.
The abuse of the moral faculties is directly injurious; that of the intellectual faculties mostly so in an indirect manner. Such abuses are more hurtful by the influence they have upon the conduct than they have upon the intellect itself. If a man's judgment is unsound, for example, it leads to deleterious consequences, not only to himself, but to others. If the powers of observation are weak, and a person is deficient in the capacity of judging of form, distance or locality, he will be incapacitated from success in many pursuits of life without his suffering thereby, except in an indirect manner. The imagination, the noblest manifestation of intellect, may, without judgment, be allowed to run riot, or abused by its exaltation; and with the faculty of wonder may lead to superstition, fanaticism and folly. The intellectual faculties may be altogether weak or almost wanting. In such cases we have foolishness merging into idiocy.
The examples here given of use, as opposed to neglect, misuse, or abuse, are simply illustrative of the point in question. They might be extended in an indefinite degree, especially if it were proposed to enter into details. They will, however, suffice for the purpose in view, which is to show that the use of all the powers and faculties granted to us by the Creator is intended for our benefit, and is conducive to health, happiness and longevity, but that their neglect or their abuse leads to misery, pain, affliction, disaster and disease.
The lesson to be conveyed is that moderation is essential in all things. Why is it that the sickly and the ailing sometimes survive the strong and hearty? Because suffering has taught the former moderation, whilst the sense of power leads the latter to excesses which too often prove fatal. Everyone has, in his experience, known instances of the kind.
But the use and not the neglect or abuse of the faculties is the observance of the laws of God and Nature. If neglect and misuse of our faculties lead to loss of power, so their abuse leads to bad conduct and its pains and penalties. What has been here termed moderation, as a medium between neglect, use and abuse, is really obedience to the laws of God and Nature.
The whole secret of health, happiness and longevity lies then in this simple observance, if it can only be fully understood, appreciated in all its importance, and carried out in all the smallest details of life. As such perfection is rare, and somewhat difficult to attain—the trials and temptations of life being so great—so are none of the results here enumerated often arrived at; but that is no reason why man should not endeavour to reach as near perfection as possible, and enjoy as much health and happiness as he can. One of the most common and one of the greatest errors is to suppose that happiness is to be obtained by the pursuit of pleasure and excitement. The temporary enjoyment created by such is inevitably followed by reaction—lassitude and weariness—and human nature is palled by the surfeit of amusement as much as it is by the luxuries of the table. There cannot be a more humiliating spectacle than that of the man of the world, as he is called, or the woman of fashion or pleasure. Blasé is too considerate an expression. Such persons are worn-out prematurely in body, mind and intellect—they are soulless and unsympathetic—the wrecks of the noble creatures God created as man and woman in all the simplicity of their nature.
It is surely worth while, then, considering whether the enjoyment of health and happiness is not worth a little study and a little sacrifice of the vain and imaginary pleasures of the world. There is no doubt that some amount of restraint and some power of self-control are requisite to ensure moderation. But the disdain of many pleasures is a chief part of what is commonly called wisdom.
It is with waking and sleeping, with talking and walking, with eating and drinking, with toil and labour, with all the acts of life, that moderation or obedience to the laws of Nature requires some little sacrifice in their observance; but it is quite certain that without this obedience there is neither health nor happiness nor longevity.
