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The Fourth Treatise - CHAPTER XXIV
Returning to the proposition, I say that Human Life is divided into
four ages or stages. The first is called Adolescence, that is, the
growth or increase of life; the second is called Youth, that is, the
age which can give perfection, and for this reason one understands
this Youth to be perfect, because no man can give except of that which
he has; the third is called Old Age; the fourth is called Senility,
Extreme Old Age, as has been said above.
Of the first no one doubts, but each wise man agrees that it lasts
even to the twenty-fifth year; and up to that time our Soul waits for
the increase and the embellishment of the body. While there are many
and very great changes in the person, the rational part cannot possess
perfectly the power of discretion; wherefore, the Civil Law wills
that, previous to that age, a man cannot do certain things without a
guardian of perfect age.
Of the second, which is the height of our life, the time is variously
taken by many. But leaving that which philosophers and medical men
write concerning it, and returning to the proper argument, we may say
that, in most men in whom one can and ought to be guided by natural
judgment, that age lasts for twenty years. And the reason which leads
me to this conclusion is, that the height or supreme point of our arc
or bow is in the thirty-fifth year; just so much as this age has of
ascent, so much it ought to have of descent; and this ascent passes
into descent, as it were, at the point, the centre, where one would
hold the bow in the hand, at which place a slight flexion may be
discerned. We are of opinion, then, that Youth is completed in the
forty-fifth year.
And as Adolescence is in the twenty-five years which proceed mounting
upwards to Youth: so the descent, that is, Old Age, is an equal amount
of time which succeeds to Youth; and thus Old Age terminates in the
seventieth year.
But because Adolescence does not begin at the beginning of
life--taking it in the way which has been said--but about eight months
from birth; and because our life strives to ascend, and curbs itself
in the descent; because the natural heat is lessened and can do
little, and the moist humour is increased, not in quantity, but in
quality, so that it is less able to evaporate and be consumed; it
happens that beyond Old Age there remains of our life an amount,
perhaps, of about ten years, a little more or a little less; and this
time of life is termed Extreme Old Age, or Senility. Wherefore we know
of Plato (of whom one may well say that he was a son of Nature, both
because of his perfection and because of his countenance, which caused
Socrates to love him when first he saw him), that he lived eighty and
one years, according to the testimony of Tullius in that book On Old
Age. And I believe that if Christ had not been crucified, and if He
might have lived the length of time which His life according to nature
could have passed over, at eighty and one years He would have been
transformed from the mortal body into the eternal.
Truly, as has been said above, these ages may be longer or shorter
according to our complexion or temper and our constitution or
composition; but, as they are, it seems to me that I observe this
proportion in all men, as has been said, that is to say, that in such
men the ages may be made longer or shorter according to the integrity
of the whole term of the natural life.
Throughout all these ages this Nobility of which we speak manifests
its effects in different ways in the ennobled Soul; and it is that
which this part of the Song, concerning which we write at present,
intends to demonstrate. Where it is to be known that our good and
upright nature makes forward progress in us in the reasoning powers,
as we see the nature of the plants make forward progress; and
therefore it is that different manners and different deportment are to
be held reasonable at one age rather than at another. The ennobled
Soul proceeds in due order along a single path, employing each of its
powers in its time and season, or even as they are all ordained to the
final production of the perfect fruit. And Tullius is in harmony with
this in his book On Old Age. And putting aside the figurative sense
which Virgil holds in the AEneid concerning this different progress of
the ages, and letting that be which Egidius the hermit mentions in the
first part On the Government of Princes, and letting that be to which
Tullius alludes in his book Of Offices, and following that alone which
Reason can see of herself, I say that this first age is the door and
the path through which and along which we enter into our good life,
And this entrance must of necessity have certain things which the good
Nature, which fails not in things necessary, gives to us; as we see
that she gives to the vine the leaves for the protection of the fruit,
and the little tendrils which enable it to twine round its supports,
and thus bind up its weakness, so that it can sustain the weight of
its fruit. Beneficent Nature gives, then, to this age four things
necessary to the entrance into the City of the Good Life. The first is
Obedience, the second Suavity, the third Modesty, the fourth Beauty of
the Body, even as the Song says in the first section of this part. It
is, then, to be known that like one who has never been in a city, who
would not know how to find his way about the streets without
instruction from one who is accustomed to them, even so the adolescent
who enters into the Wood of Error of this life would not know how to
keep to the good path if it were not pointed out to him by his elders.
Neither would the instruction avail if he were not obedient to their
commands, and therefore at this age obedience is necessary. Here it
might be possible for some one to speak thus: Then, is that man to be
called obedient who shall follow evil guidance as well as he who shall
believe the good? I reply that this would not be obedience, but
transgression. For if the King should issue a command in one way and
the servant give forth the command in another, it would not be right
to obey the servant, for that would be to disobey the King; and thus
it would be transgression. And therefore Solomon says, when he intends
to correct his son, and this is his first commandment: "Listen, my
son, to the instruction of thy father." And then he seeks to remove
him immediately from the counsel and teaching of the wicked man,
saying, "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."
Wherefore, as soon as he is born, the son clings to the breast of the
mother; even so soon as some light of the Mind appears in him, he
ought to turn to the correction of the father, and the father to
instruction. And let the father take heed that he himself does not set
him an example in work or action that is contrary to the words of the
correction; for naturally we see each son look more to the footprints
of the paternal feet than to those of other men. And therefore the
Law, which provides for this, says and commands that the life of the
father should appear to his sons always honourable and upright. Thus
it appears that obedience was necessary in this age; and therefore
Solomon writes in the Book of Proverbs, that he who humbly and
obediently sustains his just reproofs from the corrector shall be
glorious. And he says "shall be," to cause men to understand that he
speaks to the adolescent, who cannot be so in his present age. And if
any one should reflect on me because I have said obedience is due to
the father and not to other men, I say that to the father all other
obedience ought to be referred; wherefore the Apostle says to the
Colossians: "Sons, obey your fathers in all things, for such is the
will of God." And if the father be not in this life, the son ought to
refer to that which is said by the father in his last Will as a
father; and if the father die intestate, the son ought to refer to him
to whom the Law commits his authority; and then ought the masters and
elders to be obeyed, for this appears to be a reasonable charge laid
upon the son by the father, or by him who stands in the father's
place.
But because this present chapter has been long, on account of the
useful digressions which it contains, in another chapter other things
shall be discussed. _
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