THE VALUE OF OLD AGE. 315 



his riper and broader years. ' First Principles/ the first work in the 

 series, was finished when he was forty-two years old ; ' Principles of 

 Psychology ' when he was fifty-two ; ' Principles of Sociology ' when 

 he was fifty-six and one of the greatest in his ethics series, ' Justice/ 

 came at the age of seventy-one. He was close upon eighty when his 

 monumental ' Synthetic Philosophy ' was completed, and the person 

 has not yet appeared who has discovered any diminution of his powers 

 from the earlier work to the last page of the final volume. 



The only aspect of the matter that is worth troubling about is the 

 assertion that no creative, original or vitally important work is accom- 

 plished by men who have passed forty years. The difficulty is to make 

 selections from the abundance of rich material at hand. We have a 

 casual list, and one of the first names is that of an American. 

 Benjamin Franklin was eighty-four years old when he died in 1790. 

 His early life and achievements do not concern us, and are well known. 

 When he was past sixty he was the chief instrumentality in the repeal 

 of the Stamp Act; and after he had reached seventy years he was the 

 main element of inspiration, energy and brains in the first continental 

 congress. At this period (1776) — when he was at the head of the 

 mission to the court of France in aid of American finance — it is said 

 of Franklin that he was ' one of the most talked-of men in the world.' 

 This mission in its all-around results to America and to the world at 

 large has had no parallel. Its chief elements were the bringing about 

 of an alliance between France and the colonies; and the negotiation 

 of a loan of twenty-six million francs, obtained mainly through his 

 own wonderful personality — it certainly was not upon any established 

 or recognized basis of credit. This, after he was seventy years old. 

 At the age of seventy-seven Franklin was one of three commissioners 

 who negotiated the peace treaty with Great Britain after the revolu- 

 tion. Even at the age of eighty his countrymen considered his services 

 invaluable, and refused to be deprived of them. He devised the most 

 original, valuable, important and far-reaching feature of the consti- 

 tution of the United States, namely, that which gives the states equal 

 representation in the Senate and representation according to population 

 in the House. 



A large book could be filled with equally interesting and pertinent 

 data concerning the achievements of men past middle life; but we 

 may do little else than mention some of them. Christopher Columbus 

 was fifty-six years old when he discovered America; and when he 

 returned from his last voyage to the West Indies and South America 

 he was sixty-eight. Magellan was forty-nine years old when he sailed 

 away upon his globe-girdling voyage — the first man to circumnavigate 

 the world. Baron Humboldt postponed until he reached seventy-six 

 the crowning work of his life, finishing it ('The Kosmos') with high 



