It is said that the natural life of all animals, left to pursue a
natural existence by being protected from the enemies of their species,
and in reach of sufficient nourishment, is six times the growing
period. If this is so no man need die or move his soul to another
habitation until he has occupied the present one for from one hundred
and ten to one hundred and forty years. If the proper use of the
instincts and senses be conserved in children, the growing period may
be prolonged to probably twenty-five years with a resultant tenure of
life of one hundred and fifty years.
I have personally interviewed a patriarch, who, at sixty-five, was
awaiting death with constant expectancy, and was helping to attain it
by every sort of favourable suggestion. It happened that he had his
portrait taken in a photograph gallery on his sixty-fifth birthday
as a last souvenir to be distributed among his friends. Shortly after
that, in the fruity and salubrious foothills of the Pacific Coast of
California, he met with accidental suggestion which changed his habits
of living, and, very soon, his attitude toward life and death.
I sat with the patriarch on his one hundredth birthday in the same
photograph gallery, examined the portraits of sixty-five and one
hundred years, conversed with the subject in a low tone of voice,
looked upon a man who felt that he was yet in middle life, and in
possession of an enjoyment of life that he said had never been equalled
in the early years of his bondage to the ignorance and impatience of
youth.[13]
[Footnote 13: The rejuvenated patriarch is still alive in 1903.]
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