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 Æneid 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.