THE CONDITION OF OLD AGE 29 



we could keep ourselves more or less of the stature 

 of pygmies we should be healthier and better off. I 

 confess these theories, and many others which I might 

 enumerate to you, seem to me to be somewhat fan- 

 tastic odd rather than valuable. Yet they all spring 

 from this one common feeling, which is, I believe, a 

 sinister influence upon the thought of the day in 

 regard to the problem of age they spring from the 

 medical conception that age is a kind of disease, and 

 that the problem is to explain the condition as it 

 exists in man. Now that is precisely what I protest 

 against. What I hope to accomplish in these lectures 

 is to build up gradually in your minds some acquaint- 

 ance with the fundamental and essential changes 

 which are characteristic of age and in regard to which 

 we have been learning something during the last few 

 years I might almost say only within recent years 

 and by means of this exposition to give you a broader 

 view and a juster interpretation of the problem. I 

 hope, before I finish, to convince you that we are 

 already able to establish certain significant generalisa- 

 tions as to what is essential in the change from youth 

 to old age, and that in consequence of these gen- 

 eralisations, now possible to us, new problems present 

 themselves to our minds, which we hope really to be 

 able to solve, and that in the solving of them we 

 shall gain a sort of knowledge, which is likely to be 

 not only highly interesting to the scientific biologist, 

 but also to prove, in the end, of great practical value. 

 Surely we cannot hope to obtain any power over 



