solute lives, in which continence is certainly not an element. The following table from M. Casper15 would seem to sustain our position. Of many hundreds of celibates who had attained their seventieth year, there were found of
Priests 42 per cent Agriculturists 40 " Merchants and Manufacturers 35 " Soldiers 32 " Clerks 32 Lawyers 29 " Artists 28 " Teachers 27 " Physicians 24 "
That which is certain in this table, is that the priests were celibates, and that which is melancholy is that the poor physician whose life is devoted to prolonging that of others, finds himself at the foot of the macrobiotic scale. Let no one contend that continence is incompatible with health and longevity. It is the argument of libertines, of those who seek a pretext for excesses of every sort, of those who would evade the plainest dictates of reason and com- mon sense. It is certainly opposed to sound physiological views. Nature has decreed that the act of reproduction shall be expensive to the individual, so she surrounds it, in all cases, with something more or less of danger. In most vegetable, and in certain animal organizations, the accomplishment of this act is followed, more or less speedily, by death. In certain instances the male expires in the embrace. All tends to prove that the propagation of the species is the final law assigned to all living beings. As though apprehensive that the intelligence of man would inform him of the danger, and lead him to refrain from the duty imposed on him, nature had hidden its perils
