One saying more I must quote from De Senectute, for it might have served for our text: In my whole discourse remember that I am praising that old age which is established on the foundations of youth. Neither gray hairs nor wrinkles can suddenly catch respect, but the former part of life honorably spent reaps the fruits of authority at the close.
Cicero's philosophy on this subject may be our philosophy in part, but his religion is not our re ligion, and his economics are not our economics. A Christian poet, interpreting a Jewish scholar of the middle ages, retains this same philosophy of the normal life of man, while giving it a new aspect— the religious faith of modern life. Recall some fragments of Browning's version of Rabbi Ben Ezra's thoughts on old age and death : Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made! So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou wait edst age: wait death nor be afraid! Not on the vulgar mass Called "work," must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount; Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All men ignored in me, This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
This reflection that we are to be valued by our ideals and not by our acts is one which is peculiarly appropriate to old age, taking rest for a moment ere the valiant soul be gone once more on an ad venture brave and true; and there we might leave the matter as the end of our attempt to follow through the normal life of man. But economist and pragmatist would have cause for complaint if we were to do so.
Socially, acts are worth, not what the doer hopes, but what difference his actions make in the lives of men. We are concerned, as we agreed at the beginning, in a sober, matter-of-fact consideration of the serious social problems of life's succeeding stages, and our last word therefore must be not of the triumph of normal life over death in the man who has achieved and won even his last great fight, but a word of sober, unimpassioned, matter-of-fact remembrance: of the babies that die for want of nourishment and enlightened care; of the children who are not leading normal lives in that they are handicapped by tainted blood, by the drunken ness and sensuality, or by the lack of thrift and efficiency, of their elders; of the older youth whose amusements are craps and petty larceny, un guarded dance halls, and uncensored "movies," or who have little leisure even for vicious amuse ments, because they are worked and overworked until they are robbed of their youth; of the adult men and women who have missed the normal way, through their fault or ours, through defective per sonality or lack of opportunity, through bad in dustrial relations leading possibly to a disastrous conflict or to disastrous litigation, through the long persistent consequences of slavery, or the quick coming consequences of war, through dislocations in industry or delayed social adjustment; of the childless and friendless old men and women, bat tered wrecks of life, surviving through all the years of their failures, or it may be pushed down tragic wise at the end after having known prosperity and a measure of success and usefulness.
If we accept the faith that we build the social structure, we must build it for them, the least of these our brethren, or it will never stand.
Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, On the bodies and souls of living men? And think ye that building shall endure, Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor? God has plans man must not spoil, Some were made to starve and toil, Some to share the wine and oil, We are told: Devil's theories are these, Stifling hope and love and peace, Framed your hideous lusts to please, Hunger and cold.
So said Lowell in two of his short poems seventy years ago, and so may we say. We need accept no scheme for exploiting the weaknesses and dis abilities of some that others may ripen into luxury and privilege. Those are devil's theories wherever they are spoken.
Neither superman nor subman can lead the social life; for the one is an exploiter, and it is a devil's theory that would enthrone him, while the other is a constant temptation to the exploiting and tyran 15 nical beast that slumbers ever in the breast of every ordinary man, to be aroused by superior position or special privilege or luck. The strong man, socialized, has cast out the beast, has felt the pleasure of helping men and learned how to do it. He does not despise his fellows, but is their fellow in spirit, in privileges, in aspirations, in a common lot. The Father of men, the Son of Man, the brooding spirit of mankind, has need for strong men among the sons of men to bear their burdens and to lighten them, to build more justly and firmly the structure of our common lives.