OLD AGE AND DEATH 



ALL around us, if we will, we may see living creatures 

 growing from the apparent simplicity of germs to 

 the obvious complexity of adult organisation. But from 

 their earliest hours they are singled and sifted. Out of 

 a million oyster-embryos energetically swimming in the 

 sea, it may be that only one reaches maturity, and even 

 then it may be that it has only survived to become what 

 Huxley playfully called " a gustatory flash of summer 

 lightning." In all ordinary cases, however, throughout 

 the animal kingdom there is abundant survival, and those 

 who escape the dangers of the first part of the Mirza 

 bridge form a strong contingent. As we watch them we 

 see that they wax stronger, attain a stable constitution, 

 adjust themselves masterfully to their environment, and 

 give rise to others like themselves. From almost every 

 point of view the curve of their life rises, and they are 

 full of promise. We see life victorious and triumphant. 



But as we continue to watch, we begin sooner or later 

 to detect a rift within the lute. We begin to detect 

 symptoms of decadence. Vigour slackens, the range of 

 activities narrows, the thrusts of adverse circumstances 

 or of intrusive disease are less successfully parried, the 

 organisms drift instead of swimming in the environmental 

 current, they lose their grip on their surroundings which 

 seem to close in upon them, they sometimes show internal 

 symptoms of weakening and atrophy in a word, they 

 %row old. 



