8. Most utopian works include at least a brief refer-
ence to prolongevity; however, such remarks are lim-
ited. One might think utopians would be the most
radical of prolongevitists, but this is not the case, nor
should it be if one defines utopianism as the belief that
a near-perfect society can be introduced quickly by
means which are already available. By accepting these
conditions, utopians focus attention more on changing
internal attitudes than external conditions. Inhabitants
of utopian communities are depicted as not suffering
from infirmities of age, but this often is due to their
acceptance of the “inevitable.” However, there also
are utopian writers who are strongly prolongevitist:
e.g., J. A. Etzler, The Paradise Within the Reach of
All Men (1833).
If utopians are not as prolongevitist as usually
thought, the romantics have undergone an opposite
distortion by intellectual historians who associate
romanticism with the cult of death. There are inclina-
tions toward prolongevity in romantic writings by
Goethe, Shelley, E. Darwin, C. W. Hufeland, and even
Novalis, and there are romantic tendencies in the
prolongevitist thought of Kirk, Reade, Metchnikoff,
and Stephens. The most far-reaching romantic prolon-
gevitist is Nicholas F. Fyodorov (1828-1903)—his
writings began to circulate about 1868 and a collection
was published posthumously as The Philosophy of the
Common Task (1906). Fyodorov calls for a fusion of
Christian ethics and scientific methods to bring about
complete salvation from death (including resurrection):
recent philosophers consider it possible that “future
science will recognize Fyodorov as a 'prophet' of its
own achievements” (Edie, et al., 1965).
The idea of progress was given renewed vigor by
Darwinism, and the cautious Darwin himself pictures
a future “progress towards perfection.” However, just
as Social Darwinists divide into apologists and melio-
rists, so also in biomedicine there is a division. The
apologist spokesman August Weismann, who claims
senescence is essential to the evolution of higher spe-
cies, influenced the psychoanalytic concept of a “death
instinct” (see Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Sec.
6). The best known meliorist was Élie Metchnikoff who
argues that man can overcome “premature” aging by
cell-stimulating sera and by combatting “toxic” intes-
tinal bacteria. Others in the prolongevity group in-
cluded William Sweetser (
Human Life, 1867); Wynne-
wood Reade (
The Martyrdom of Man, 1872), who faces
the ethical problem of “expendable” generations in
progress towards a super-race; Hyland Kirk (
The Possi-
bility of Not Dying, 1883); and C. A. Stephens (
Natural
Salvation, 1903), who states clearly the religious origins
of his prolongevitism and attempted to establish the
first institute of gerontology.
Prolongevity is a standard theme in Marxist litera-
ture. The Soviet government has encouraged prolon-
gevitism, and the first international gerontology con-
ference was held at Kiev in 1938. However, in
communist thought there appears also a subordination
of the individual to the collective, and the longevity
of a person (or even a generation) may be sacrificed.
No school of prolongevity thought has been so con-
troversial as the one which attempts to secure a return
to youth by repairing deficiencies in sex-gland function.
Already in Taoism (see above) there had been efforts
to retain sexual fluids. More specific to mid-nineteenth-
century France was the Comtean (positivist) doctrine
that conservation of a sexual substance would
strengthen body and mind. A biomedical basis for this
was provided by experimental investigations by Claude
Bernard and his successor Brown-Séquard whose an-
nouncement (1889) that he had injected himself with
testicular extracts caused a phenomenal increase of
interest in internal secretions and established a basis
for modern endocrinology (Olmsted, 1946). Serge
Voronoff in 1922 caused a new sensation with his claims
for successful grafting of ape and monkey testes; the
idea of organ transplants has continued.
In the twentieth century, the most important devel-
opments are the rapid creation of the specialties of
geriatrics and gerontology, the accelerating rate of
research of all aspects of aging, and the increasing
private and public support for this research. Some
developments in biomedical research relevant to pro-
longevity are: “immortality” of tissue cultures, prolon-
gation of life by underfeeding or cooling, studies of
atherosclerosis, isolation of “status quo” hormones,
discovery of protective action of glycerol and dimethyl
sulphoxide in freezing (the “cryonics” movement and
the first interment at ultra-low temperature in 1967).
In the modern dilemma about longevity, P. B.
Medawar (1960) points out that nature is “indifferent”
with regard to aging. The “worth” of the individual
is not so much a fact as a goal; i.e., a product of
meliorism. And social scientists find that meliorism is
an essential part of modern culture. This meliorism is
causing an “aging population” (which, in turn, causes
increased biomedical research). In 1900 in the United
States there were 3 million persons over sixty-five years
of age, 4 per cent of the population. By 1975 it is
estimated the number of the aged will be 21 million,
about 10 per cent of the population (U.S. Bureau of
Census, 1967). In a “welfare state,” society, of neces-
sity, is committed to prolongevity. Indeed, it may be
argued (A. Harrington), that such a society risks spirit-
ual disintegration if it wavers in the struggle against
suffering and death.
