Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 34: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea; December, 1920

The lowest expectancy under any of the tables we have used that for the uninsured male population of England - gives when Calculated from the age of fifty. A life - length higher by more than four and one half years than the average enjoyed by the thousand individuals in Professor Cattell's lists. Measured by the expect ancy for the insured males of England the figures rises to.5.82 years. And when measured by the American experience tables of mortality a result even more imposing is obtained. But we appreciate the'difficulty of utilizing for our purpose the tables of insurance a'ctuaries, especially as insured life on the continent Of Europe, and particularly in Germany. Possesses a lower value in terms Of years than is claimed by insured life in Great Britain. English life tables. However, as applying to the ordinary population. Are admitted on all hands to be the most nearly perfect in existence. And tested by those tables the longevity of the world's thousand most gifted indi viduals has been decidedly inferior to that of the population at large.

We are not unmindful, be it said, of the difficult elements in the comp-ariso-n. The law of averages. We realize. Is a fatuous thing, and an'average computed from data not sufficiently large to exclude accidental factors may lead to results wholly untrustworthy. We are well aware. In particular, that no formula exists for arriving at the value of life in terms of years at a given epoch in the past, nor can we know that the forces now at work in civilized society do not influence the average duration of life very differently than did the forces at work in earlier ages influence the life of those times. And it is not impossible that the ave-rage life - expectancy at the age of fifty during the several periods of historic time may have been sufficiently below that of the present day to absorb the differ. Ence we have found in favor of the ordinary population as against the children Of fame. So, too, it may be said, even the English life - tables are confessedly tentative and provrsional. And the very figure we employ as a basis for the calculation of our expectancies may be too high. Making the most generous deduction. However, for these considerations. It still appears that the conclusions of Galton and Lombroso are a delusion, and that genius. If not actually shorter-lived by a goodly number of years. Is assuredly not longer lived than mediocrity.

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