192 REPRODUCTION 



Once the plant or animal has secured the continuation of the 

 species, its body is of little further use. It grows old and de- 

 cays and in due course dies; and it is well that it should be so. 



The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; 

 And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, 

 Yet is their strength labour and sorrow; 

 For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Psalm xc. 10. 



As the melancholy Jaques in As You Like It tells us : 



The sixth age shifts 

 Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, 

 " With spectacles on nose and pouch on side. 



His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 



For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice, 



Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 



And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all. 



That ends this strange eventful history. 



Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 



Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. 



The decay of the faculties is said to take place in inverse 

 order to the acquirement of them. The average man when he 

 reaches the age of forty-five has to have recourse to spectacles, 

 and his vision decays as he grows older. In old age the hair 

 and the teeth tend to disappear, the hearing is deadened. His 

 body becomes smaller. He is physically weaker, and in old 

 age we return to our earliest memories, forgetting the things 

 of to-day and remembering best the things that have long since 

 passed. In this weakened stage it is obvious that no fate could 

 be more unhappy than immortality. When Eos begged Zeus 

 that her lover Tithonus might live for ever, she made a pro- 

 found mistake. What she ought to have asked for was that he 

 should be endowed with immortal youth. This error of judg- 

 ment cost her dear, for Tithonus shrivelled up into a hideous 

 old man whom Eos kept shut up in a chamber. Finally his 

 prayer was granted and he was changed into a grasshopper. 



No fate could be more unhappy than immortality in this 

 world. 



The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, 

 The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, 

 Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, 

 And after many a summer dies the swan. 

 Me only cruel immortality 

 Consumes : 



