LONGEVITY OF CLASSES. Deep-thinking philosophers have at all times been distinguished by their great age, especially when their philosophy was occupied in the study of Nature, and afforded them the divine pleasure of discovering new and important truths,—the purest enjoyment; a beneficial exaltation of ourselves, and a kind of restoration which may be ranked among the principal means of prolonging the life of a perfect being. The most ancient instances are to be found among the Stoics and the Pythagoreans, according to whose ideas subduing the passions and sensibility, with the observation of strict regimen, were the most essential duties of a philosopher. Thus, we have the examples of a Plato and an Isocrates. Apollonius of Tyana, an accomplished man, endowed with extraordinary powers both of body and mind, who by the Christians was considered as a magician, and by the Greeks and Romans as a messenger of the gods, in his regimen a follower of Pythagoras, and a friend to travelling, was above 100 years of age. Xenophilus, a Pythagorean also, lived 106 years. The philosopher Demonax, a man of the most severe manners and uncommon stoical apathy, lived likewise 100. Even in modern times philosophers seem to have obtained this preëminence; and the deepest thinkers appear in that respect to have enjoyed, in a higher degree, the fruits of their mental tranquillity. Kepler and Bacon both attained to a great age; and Newton, who found all his happiness and pleasure in the higher spheres, attained to the age of 84. Euler, a man of incredible industry, whose works on the most abstruse subjects amount to above three hundred, approached near to the same age; and Kant, who reached the age of 80, showed that philosophy not only can preserve life, but that it is the most faithful companion of the greatest age, and an inexhaustible source of happiness to one’s self and to others. Academicians, in this respect, have been particularly distinguished. We need only mention the venerable Fontenelle,[58] who wanted but one year of a hundred, and that Nestor, Formey; both perpetual secretaries, the former of the French, and the latter of the Berlin Academy. We find also many instances of long life among schoolmasters, so that one might almost believe that continual intercourse with youth may contribute something towards our renovation and support. But poets and artists, in short all those fortunate mortals whose principal occupation leads them to be conversant with the sports of fancy and self-created worlds, and whose whole life, in the properest sense, is an agreeable dream, have a particular claim to a place in the history of longevity. Anacreon, Sophocles, and Pindar attained a great age. Young, Voltaire, Bodmer, Haller, Metastasio, Gleim, Utz, and Oeser, all lived to be very old; and Wieland, the prince of German poets, lived to the age of 80. (See _Wilson on Longevity_.)