The educated reader need not be reminded again that one of the great
discoveries which has immortalized the name of Darwin is the law that an
organism has always a tendency to repeat, at an analogous period in its
life, the action of its progenitors, the more surely and completely in
proportion to their proximity in the scale of life. One result of this
is, that, in general, organized beings usually die at a period (on an
average) the same as that of their progenitors. It is true that there
is a great difference between the actual ages at which individuals of
any species die. Disease, accidents and famine are the main agents in
causing this. But there is, in each species, a well-known limit within
which the Race-life lies, and none are known to survive beyond it. This
applies to the human species as well as any other. Now, supposing that
every possible sanitary condition had been complied with, and every
accident and disease avoided by a man of ordinary frame, in some
particular case there would still, as is known to medical men, come a
time when the particles of the body would feel the hereditary tendency
to do that which leads inevitably to dissolution, and would obey it.
Pages:
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51