428 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



could only represent decrepitude and infirmity, degen- 

 eration and senility. In view of such facts, says Dr. 

 Acton : 



"We are therefore forced to the conclusion that 

 the children of old men have an inferior chance of life ; 

 and facts daily observed confirm our deductions. Look 

 but at the progeny of such marriages ; what is its value ! 

 As far as I have seen, it is the worst kind— spoilt child- 

 hood, feeble and precocious youth, extravagant man- 

 hood, early and premature death." 



Cicero on Old Age.— Cicero, in his essay on Old 

 Age, makes the following remarks, bearing directly on 

 this subject: 



"Another charge against old age is that it deprives 

 us of sensual gratifications. Happy effect, indeed, to be 

 delivered from those snares which allure youth into 

 some of the worst vices! 'Reason,' said Archytas, 'is 

 the noblest gift which God or nature has bestowed on 

 man. Now nothing is so great an enemy to that divine 

 endowment as the pleasures of sense ; for neither tem- 

 perance, nor any of the more exalted virtues, can find 

 place in that breast which is under the dominion of 

 voluptuous passions. Imagine yourself a man in the 

 actual enjoyment of the highest gratifications mere 

 animal nature is capable of receiving ; there can be no 

 doubt that during his continuance in that state, it would 

 be utterly impossible for him to exert any one power of 

 his rational faculties.' The inference I draw from this 

 is, that if the principles of reason and virtue have not 

 proved sufficient to inspire us with proper contempt for 

 mere sensual pleasures, we have cause to feel grateful 

 to old age for at last weaning us from appetites it would 

 ill become us to gratify; for voluptuous passions are 

 bitter enemies to all the nobler faculties of the soul; 



