Striking testimony to the destructive effects of vice in early manhood is derived from a very different source--viz., the strictly business calculation of the chances of life, furnished by Life Insurance Companies. These tables show the rapid fall in viability during the earlier years of adult life. Dr. Carpenter has reproduced a striking diagram[26] from the well-known statistician Quetelet, showing the comparative viability of men and women at different ages, and its rapid diminution in the male from the age of eighteen to twenty-five. He remarks: ‘The mortality is much greater in males from about the age of eighteen to twenty-eight, being at its maximum at twenty-five, when the viability is only half what it is at puberty. This fact is a very striking one, and shows most forcibly that the indulgence of the passions not only weakens the health, but in a great number of instances is the cause of a very premature death.’[27] Dr. Bertillon (a well-known French statistician) has shown by the statistics of several European countries that the irregularities of unmarried life produce disease, crime, and suicide; that the rate of mortality in bachelors of twenty-five is equal to that of married men at forty-five; that the immoral life of the unmarried and the widowed, whether male or female, ages them by twenty years and more. Many of the foreign health resorts are filled with young men of the richer classes of society, seeking to restore the health destroyed by dissipation. Could the simple truth be recorded on the tombstones of multitudes of precious youth, from imperial families downward, who are mourned as victims of consumption, softening of the brain, etc., all lovers of the race would stand appalled at the endless record of these wasted lives. ‘Died from the effects of fornication’ would be the true warning voice from these premature graves. The moral results of early dissipation are quite as marked as the physical evils. The lower animal nature gains ever-increasing dominion over the moral life of the individual. The limited nature of all animal enjoyments produces its natural effects. First there is the eager search after fresh stimulants, and as the boundaries of physical enjoyment are necessarily reached, come in common sequence, disappointment, disgust, restlessness, dreariness, or bitterness. The character of the mental deterioration differs with the difference of original character in the individual, as in the nation. In some we observe an increasing hardness of character, growing contempt for women, with low material views of life. In others there is a frivolity of mind induced, a constant restlessness and search for new pleasures. The frankness, heartiness, and truthfulness of youth gradually disappear under the withering influence.[28]