THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE CYCLE 185 



reference to an old-established span of life. It is not 

 for us to discuss the great constitutional changes — 

 notably in the regulative system — associated with the 

 normal waning of sex about fifty or so ; but two things 

 are important biologically, the one is the danger of 

 artificially fanning the embers of a naturally dying 

 fire, and the other is the value of havmg at a danger- 

 ous age a many-sided — indeed inexhaustible — interest in 

 life. As the parable tells us, it is dangerous to leave empty 

 the room from which the unclean spirit has departed. 



§ 10. The Problem of Growing Old, the Art of 

 Kemaining Young 



One may die a more or less violent, accidental or 

 extrinsic death, as happens apparently to most wild 

 animals ; one may be poisoned by an invasion of mi- 

 crobe^ — and when they come from a neighbour's drains, 

 one must die feeling rather ill-used ; one may poison 

 oneself with over-eating, over-drinking, or over-anxi- 

 ety ; one may in rare cases wear oneself out with over- 

 work alone. In one or other of these four ways one 

 may avoid the long slope of senescence. But grow- 

 ing old is part of the normal cycle, though one can- 

 not beheve that seniHty is. Prolonged senihty never 

 occurs among wild animals, and rapid senility is rare ; 

 even senescence is not very common. This is a parable. 



We cannot draw any hard and fast fine between 

 senescence and senility, any more than between tired- 

 ness and neurasthenia, but in senility the disintegra- 

 tive processes have gone so far that the unity of the 



