In England no one can be chosen a member of Parliament under 21 years of age, nor be ordained a priest under the age of 24, nor made a bishop until he has become 30 years of age. The age of serving in the militia is from 16 to 45 years. The sovereignty of the realm is as sumed at 18; though the law recognizes no mi nority in the heir to the throne.
In French law, a person must have attained the age of 40 to be a member of the legislative body; 25 to be a judge of a tribunal de premiere instance; 27 to be its president, or to be judge or clerk of a tour royale; 25 to be a justice of the peace; 30 to be judge of a tribunal of com merce, and 35 to be its president; 25 to be a notary public; 30 to be a juror. At 21 both males and females are capable of performing all the acts of civil life.
In Archceology.—The Danish and Swedish antiquaries and naturalists, MM. Nilson, Steen strup, Forchamber, Thomsen, Worsaae and others, have divided the period during which man has existed on the earth into three—the Age of Stone, the Age of Bronze and the Age of Iron. During the first mentioned of these he is supposed to have had only stone for weapons, etc. Sir John Lubbock divides this into two— the palmolithic, or older, and the neolithic, or newer, stone period. At the commencement of the age of bronze that composite metal became known and began to be manufactured into weapons and other instruments; while, when the age of iron came in, bronze began gradually to be superseded by iron. Consult Lyell's 'An tiquity of Man' and Lubbock's
In Geology.—Age, as used by geologists, represents a subdivision of time variously evaluated. It has been used as the equivalent of Era (q.v.), but as now generally under stood constitutes a subdivision of an epoch.
Ages of the World.— We find the ages of the world mentioned by the earliest of the Greek poets. Hesiod speaks of five distinct ages: (1) The Golden or Saturnian Age, when Saturn ruled the earth. The people were free from the restraint of laws; they had neither ships nor weapons, wars nor soldiers; the fer tile fields needed no cultivation, and perpetual spring blessed the earth. (2) The Silver Age, which he describes as licentious and wicked. (3) The Brazen Age, violent, savage and war like. (4) The Heroic Age, which seemed an approximation to a better state of things. (5) The Iron Age, when justice and honor had left the earth. The poet supposed this to be the age in which he himself lived. The idea of ages of the world is interwoven with the religious sentiments of various nations. We find examples of it in the thousand years of the Millenarians and in the four yugas or ages of the Hindus. The first or Knta Yuga, a kind of Golden Age, lasted, according to their tradition, 4,000 divine years, each equal to 360 solar years, ' and adding its fore and after °twilight," 1,728,000 solar years in all; men then lived 400 years and were all giants; then the god Brahma was born. In the second period, the Treta Yuga, which lasted 3,000 divine and 1,296,000 solar years in all, men lived only 300 years and vice began to creep into the world. During the third age or Dwapara Yuga, which lasted 2,000 divine and 864,000 solar years, men lived only 200 years owing to the increase of vice. The last age, the Kali Yuga, that in which we now live, is to last for 1,000 divine or 432,000 solar years and the life of man is sunk to one-fourth of its original duration.
Age of The duration of life in animals is generally between seven and eight times the period which elapses from birth till they become adult ; but this rule, besides being vague and indefinite, is quite useless in practice, because it affords no scale of gradation which would enable us to ascertain the precise age of individuals, the only inquiry of real importance or of practical application to the interests of so ciety. More certain and scientific principles are derived from observing the growth and decay of the teeth. See CATTLE; HORSE.