Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

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RE-İNCARNATION. ments and germs. Even when cholera, which is perhaps the most malignant form of an epidemic, is raging in a locality it is only a few who succumb to it, the majority of men remaining unaffected, and some even surviving its attack. This just proves the fact that where the vitality is not impaired germs of malignant disease are powerless to do harm to the organism. The question which now arises in this connection is : to what cause or causes is the lowness of vitality itself due?
Before attemptiug to find a reply to this question we must consider the cause of old age first, so as to be able to deal with the whole subject at once.
Observation will show that there is no fixed time at wbich old age may be said to set in in each and every case ; on the contrary, it appears some times at a comparatively early age, while in other cases its symptoms are not observable till a very advanced period of life. The most essential difference between youth and the state of senility lies in respect of the quality of matter of which the body is made and the presence of certain microbes that eat up the finer material of nerves, replacing it with a coarse and inferior stuff. It is well-known that increasing muscular debility, friability of bones, atrophy of vital organs and general degeneration of the system are the usual accompaniments of old age. According to Prof. Elie Metchnikoff,* “a conflict takes place in old age between the higher elements and the simpler or primitive elements of the organism, and the conflict ends in the victory of the latter. This victory is signalised by a weakening of the intellect, by digestive
* See. The nature of man,' p. 239.