Senescence, the Last Half of Life

by G. Stanley Hall

Accordingly, I turned to another source and selected a few score of names of mostly eminent and some very distinguished old people, both acquaintances and strangers, and addressed to each a simple questionnaire, also inviting spontaneous impartations in addition to responses to the points suggested. Some of those who did me the honor of replying, and often with much detail, are people of national and international reputation and I wish I had not promised to withhold their names for this would have given greatly added interest to the following report. All are cultivated Americans and thus they represent a single class. Most are Anglo-Saxons and I have not been able to gather much material from Oriental or non-Christian sources, desirable and important as this would be. My data are, however, sufficiently copious to illustrate the chief types of attitudes within their class. To the returns from this source I have added data from less than a score of others of the same class with whom I have personal acquaintance and I have drawn but very little from the rich field of autobiography for my inductions. Such data can, of course, only yield results that are far more suggestive than conclusive, and so I forbear from all statistics because the number of my respondents is too small. But although what follows does not represent the great majority of old people it does have a psychological value that I deem as unique as it is pertinent to my theme. It is also perhaps significant that of those who wrote expressing interest and an intention to respond, not one has done so after an interval of several months. It should perhaps also be mentioned here that the suggestion of attempting this book came from nearly two-score letters from old people, which were addressed to me through the editor of the Atlantic Monthly and were evoked by an anonymous article I published on “Old Age” in the January, 1921, number of that magazine. I have endeavored to keep the following report of these somewhat heterogeneous data as objective as possible, although it would be absurd to claim that by such a method on such a theme I have entirely escaped subjective bias.

How and at what age did you first realize the approach of old age?

This realization not infrequently begins in the forties and increases thereafter, often intensively with the beginning of each new decade. The first sign of baldness, the first touch of fatigue at stated tasks, lapse of memory for names, waning potency in men; and the first gray hairs, wrinkles, fading of complexion, and change of figure, etc., in women are often specified in our returns. Such and many other signs usually gave the first sad recognition that the meridian of life was being crossed and that gradual declination was just ahead. In many a man and woman this is, as has been recognized, a dangerous age and it often comes in the middle and later thirties in women. The latter, realizing that their summer is ending, sometimes break away from old restraints and give themselves more liberties, not only social but moral. The first glimpse of the specter of senility ahead puts them in a now-or-never mood. Men ask themselves if they will be content to go on as they are so far heading, so that there will be nothing new to be written in the story of their life save only the date of their death. They wonder if the future is to be as the past and perhaps make an inventory of their unrealized ideals, hopes, and wishes, and cross many of them off their ledger as bad debts they owe themselves but can never collect. This crossing the line is for some so serious a matter that it may cause an abrupt turn in their life line, which starts off in a new direction, as is illustrated in a few conspicuous examples in Chapter I. This touch of autumn in August, however, rarely brings frost or blight but leaves only a trace of a new seriousness and perhaps sadness, while otherwise all goes on as before.

In a few cases the first realization that one is getting old springs upon the soul, as if from ambush, on some trivial occasion and clings like an obsession that remits only to recur again and again. The majority, however, promptly and ruthlessly suppress all such intimations beneath the threshold of consciousness, telling not only others but themselves that they are just as young and capable as ever, thus refusing to recognize that age is upon them till perhaps the sixth or seventh decade. Thus the old are often the last to recognize in themselves infirmities that have long been patent to others. This is one of the benignities of nature, for to no disease, not even consumption, does she give a more effective opiate. A man of ninety still retains his post as head of a great concern he created in his youth, to its serious detriment, convinced that he is better than ever and that the scores of younger men under him lack the efficiency of those of his own generation. “He was on the verge of resigning twenty years ago,” said one of his subordinates to me, “but now he does not know enough to do so.”

On the other hand, some seem to take a new lease of life in this youth of old age. It is not so much that they have a new sense of the value of time but because they have taken in sail in other directions and, realizing the limitations of life, have focused more sharply upon the things they deem most essential.

To what do you ascribe your long life?

Good heredity is much more often specified than anything else. There is a tendency in the old to inventory the virtues of parents and ancestors and a deep-seated belief, even in these democratic days, that blood will tell. Four correspondents believed their constitution was weak and that the early realization of this called their attention to personal hygiene, so that these individuals ascribe their long life more to their own effort than to inheritance. Next in rating is the environment of early life. In our land many have been born in the country and led a laborious life in youth and later changed to urban surroundings and to more sedentary habits, which always involves a considerable strain of readjustment. Where this change has been successfully weathered there is a strong disposition to place a very high emphasis upon the beneficence of strenuous physical activity in the formative period.

Next in appreciation comes the preservative influence of good and temperate habits, reinforced by observations of acquaintances of early life who, by reason of less moderation, have preceded them to the cemetery. When our own associates die we tend to draw the lessons of their physical and moral life. One ascribes her longevity to the very early implantation of the idea that everything must be determined by its bearing upon her power to bring healthy children into the world. Most mention, and many stress, the absence of worry and overwork, although one insists that he had been chronically anxious from the first, suffering by day for years from apprehensions of evil and lying awake nights trying to plan the reconstruction of the universe. Several ascribe their length of years to the fact that as they advanced in age they learned betimes to give up former duties and lay off burdens they could no longer carry with impunity. It is evident that this realization of the effect of years differs very widely in different individuals and seems almost lacking in some. Several take pride in the fact that although they inherited a short life from both parents and grandparents they have succeeded in greatly prolonging it, and by diet and regimen in overcoming hereditary handicaps. One determined early in life to make the mind rule the body. One old lady ascribes her vigor to progressive self-forgetfulness and devotion to the service of others.

An interesting case, which I deem typical of many in these Christian Science days, declares that he early learned that all living animals, especially man, have “a constructive, preserving, and renewing principle or energy within them fully competent to care for the body in every particular, demonstrated by the evidence of a vast number of recorded cures of so-called incurable diseases without any external remedial agency.” This element can become amenable to conscious control. “We are composed of a thousand billion cells, far greater in number than that of the entire population of the globe since man arrived and each of them infinitely complex and charged with potencies.” With such a force man should place no limitations upon himself, for he has inexhaustible recuperative energy, etc. If such a faith has little justification for science, it may, nevertheless, give a mental attitude that is conducive to a poise and confidence that in itself has marked hygienic and therapeutic value. It is interesting to note that cultivated men and women seem far less prone than the ignorant to the medical fetichism that ascribes exceptional value to some nostrum or single item of diet or regimen and this suggests how fast the age-long quest for a universal panacea is vanishing from modern consciousness. As men grow old and have a long experience and youthful friends have passed away, it is inevitable that they should seek the cause of their longevity and this urge would naturally increase with years. Therefore, while the individual answers to this question have little scientific value, they are of both psychological and practical interest. Underneath them all there is a tendency to identify hygiene with morals and most men who achieve great age thus tend to look with complacency upon their life as a whole as a triumph of virtue, even though in fact it may have been quite irregular.

How do you keep well, that is, what do you find especially good or bad in diet, regimen, interests, and personal hygiene generally?