GROWTH AND DECAY OF MIND. 337 



devoted to the formation or discussion of theories is only indirectly 

 dependent upon the exercise of memory. 



Subject to the considerations suggested above, we may fairly form 

 our opinion as to the general laws of the development of mind, by 

 examining the lives of distinguished men and taking the achievement 

 of their best work, that by which they have made their mark in the 

 world's history, as indicative of the epoch when the mind had attained 

 its greatest development. Dr. Beard, of New York, has recently col- 

 lected some statistical results, which throw light on the subject of 

 mental growth, though we must note that a variety of collateral cir- 

 cumstances have to be taken into account before any sound opinion 

 can be formed as to the justice of Dr. Beard's conclusions. He states 

 that " from an analysis of the lives of a thousand representative men 

 in all the great branches of human effort, he had made the discovery 

 that the golden decade was between thirty and forty, the silver be- 

 tween forty and fifty, the brazen between twenty and thirty, the iron 

 between fifty and sixty. The superiority of youth and middle life 

 over old age in original work appears all the greater, when we con- 

 sider the fact that nearly all the positions of honor and profit and 

 prestige — professorships and public stations — are in the hands of the 

 old. Reputation, like money and position, is mainly confined to the 

 old. Men are not widely known until long after they have done the 

 work that gives them their fame. Portraits of great men are a delu- 

 sion ; statues are lies. They are taken when men have become famous, 

 which, on the average, is at least twenty-five years after they did the 

 work which gave them their fame. Original work requires enthusiasm. 

 If all the original work done by men under forty-five were annihilated, 

 the world would be reduced to barbarism. Men are at their best at 

 that time when enthusiasm and experience are most evenly balanced ; 

 this period on the average is from thirty-eight to forty. After this 

 period the law is that experience increases but enthusiasm declines. In 

 the life of almost every old man there comes a point, sooner or later, 

 when experience ceases to have any educating power." 



There is much that is true, but not a little that is, to say the least, 

 doubtful, in the above remarks. The children of a man's mind, like 

 those of his body, are commonly born while he is in the prime of life. 

 But it must not be overlooked that it is precisely because of the origi- 

 nal work done in earlier life that a man as he grows older is com- 

 monly prevented from accomplishing any great amount of original 

 work. Nearly the whole of his time is necessarily occupied in matur- 

 ing the work originated earlier. And again, the circumstance that 

 (usually) a man finds that the work of his earlier years remains incom- 

 plete and unsatisfactory, unless the labors of many sequent years are 

 devoted to it, acts as a check upon original investigation. This re- 

 mark has no bearing, or but slight bearing, on certain forms of literary 

 work; but in nearly every other department of human effort men 



TOL. IV —22 



