length. Or, again, it is perfectly possible that future generations might prefer a short and a merry life, and therefore reduce their average longevity. The duration of life cannot but depend to some extent upon the general tastes, habits and employments of the people, that is upon the ideal which they consciously or unconsciously set before them, and he would be a rash man who should undertake to predict what this ideal will be some centuries hence. All that it is here necessary however to indicate is, that this particular uniformity (as we have hitherto called it, in order to mark its relative character) has varied, and, under the influence of future eddies in opinion and practice, may vary still; and this to any extent, and with any degree of irregularity. To borrow a term from Astronomy, we find our uniformity subject to what might be called an irregular secular variation.
§ 11. The above is a fair typical instance. If we had taken a less simple feature than the length of life, or one less closely connected with what may be called by comparison the great permanent uniformities of nature, we should have found the peculiarity under notice exhibited in a far more striking degree. The deaths from small-pox, for example, or the instances of duelling or accusations of witchcraft, if examined during a few successive decades, might have shown a very tolerable degree of uniformity. But these uniformities have risen possibly from zero; after various and very great fluctuations seem tending towards zero again, at least in this century; and may, for anything we know, undergo still more rapid fluctuations in future. Now these examples must be regarded as being only extreme ones, and not such very extreme ones, of what is the almost universal rule in nature. I shall endeavour to show that even the few apparent exceptions, such as the proportions between male and female births, &c., may not be, and probably in reality
