Later on in the same poem Byron makes Cain say of his father Adam:—
It is then indubitable that among the instincts of man there is one which loves life and fears death. This instinct develops slowly and progressively with age. In that respect it is astonishingly different from other instincts. When hunger or thirst or sexual desire is gratified a sensation of satisfaction is experienced, and this readily passes into satiety or even indifference. The mood lasts for a certain time, and then the instinctive needs reawaken. The instinct of life, however, behaves very differently. In most human beings it develops slowly and becomes stronger and stronger as the years pass by. In childhood and early youth we are very anxious to “grow up,” but when we are adult we have no desire to grow old. We are greatly disturbed by the appearance of wrinkles and grey hair. Instead of being glad to have finished a great part of our mortal career, we feel sad at being nearer the inevitable end. Old age, as it usually presents itself, is marked by ugly features, and often by repugnant or even horrible characters. Little children are usually terrified by the appearance of very old persons, and it is a familiar nursery threat to send for an old man.
The murder of the aged is a custom widespread amongst the lower races. The natives of Fiji bury their old men alive, on the pretext that they have become utterly useless. The custom is in existence throughout Melanesia, and occurs in New Caledonia and in most of the adjacent Polynesian islands. Old age is universally despised in that part of the world. The natives of Australia respect old people so long as they retain their activity, but once they become unable to take care of themselves they are abandoned. Often they are killed and eaten, and this custom is favoured by their religious beliefs.[155] The ancient inhabitants of Germany, according to the investigations of Grimm, “killed the old and the sick, and often buried them alive.”
The modern civilised world has certainly made considerable progress. The old are no longer killed; they are tolerated, and accorded liberty to commit suicide. In many countries work is often refused to the old on the plea that they are not strong enough for it, and at the same time they are refused admission to almshouses on the pretext that they are not yet old enough. Dealing with the question of the average life and of the normal life, Paul Bert[156] expressed himself with regard to the aged as follows: “They deserve congratulations, care and consideration, but the prolongation of their lives does not demand any special solicitude from society.”
However, in spite of the characters of old age which make it horrible and useless, and at best no more than to be tolerated, and in spite of the physical and intellectual weakness that accompany it, the instinctive love of life is preserved in the aged in its strongest form. To make quite certain about this I have visited almshouses for the aged, and it was easy to see that all the inmates hoped that their days might be prolonged. In a Home occupied by fairly well-educated persons, I discovered that one and all felt as if they were continually being threatened by death, as if they were convicts awaiting the day of execution. At the Salpêtrière, where there are a number of very old women, septuagenarians are regarded almost as young girls. The great ambition of women of eighty is to live to one hundred, and the desire to live is almost universal.
This seems a contradiction of another fact demonstrated by statistics, that age increases the frequency of suicide. It is certain that more old men commit suicide than young men, but on careful inquiry into the statistics of the subject, it becomes evident that the chief incentive to suicide does not lie in the cessation of the will to live, but in the difficulties experienced by old people of earning a living, and in the frequent presence of disease in the aged. Deprived of the means of existence, refused the shelter of charitable institutions, old men are apt to fall back upon a rope or the fumes of charcoal. Statistics relating to the suicide of the aged show that the greatest number of victims belong to the poorer classes. The suicide of rich old men is generally prompted by the presence of incurable disease. There is, however, need for much wider inquiry into the subject. It would be interesting, for instance, to obtain more detailed information regarding the motives which urge the old to put an end to themselves. In recent times the suicide of Max von Pettenkofer aroused public attention. After a distinguished scientific career, he resigned his post of Professor at the University of Munich at the age of seventy-six. He went to live a little way outside the town on a property where he devoted himself to gardening and other country pursuits. Although a sufferer from diabetes, his intellect remained unimpaired, but he became a prey to extreme melancholy, owing to the death of some friends to whom he was greatly attached. Moreover, during the latter part of his life he suffered from a septic affection of the neck. This disease, not fatal in itself, was the indirect cause of Pettenkofer’s death, which occurred by suicide at the age of eighty-three. The post-mortem examination[157] showed a fairly well preserved organic system, healthy, with the exception of chronic inflammation of the membranes of the brain and atheroma of the cerebral arteries. The circumstances relating to this particular case of suicide are unusually well known, and yet there are many obscure points about it which are of the highest importance. The chronic meningitis from which the aged scientist suffered conclusively precluded the theory that the motives which led him to commit suicide were prompted by the phenomena of normal life. On the other hand, instances are not wanting of old men of good education and refined surroundings who cling tenaciously to life, even at a much more advanced age than the Munich professor.
The instinctive love of life resembles the sexual instinct in a great many women. Just as the love of life goes on increasing when the best of life is past, sexual pleasure is often unfelt by women until their beauty is already faded.
Another character common to the love of life and the sexual instinct is that they both persist throughout old age, although they can no longer be satisfied.
Edmond de Goncourt relates in his diary that at his réunions of literary celebrities (Zola, Daudet, and Tourgéneff), the conversation turned most frequently upon the subjects of love, life and women. “Death or love, strangely enough,” says Edmond de Goncourt, “are always what we talk about after dinner.”[158] Old age was even then knocking at the doors of the distinguished writers mentioned, and so it is quite natural that their interest should have been wholly absorbed by the two instincts which exhibit such enigmatic and paradoxical tenacity.
We saw in the preceding chapter how disharmonious is the sexual instinct which often only develops at, and nearly always persists until, a period of life when its normal and regular functional activity is no longer possible. We saw, too, the ill resulting from this disharmony in the reproductive apparatus. The ill, however, although serious, only amounts in that case to an inconvenience which can be endured.
Far worse is the disharmony of the instinctive love of life which manifests itself when death is felt to be near at hand. It is then incomprehensible and particularly terrible, and humanity, from time immemorial, has sought the key to the tragic puzzle, and tried by all the means in its power to unravel the mystery. The religions of all times have been concerned with the problem. “Religion,” says Guyau,[159] “consists for the most part of meditation upon death. If we had not to die there would probably be still more superstitions among men, but there would probably be no systematised superstitions nor religions.” Philosophy also has tried to solve the question of death. Some ancient philosophers held the opinion that philosophy is only a meditation upon death. Socrates and Cicero[160] have well said that “the life of a philosopher is a continual meditation upon death.” In our own day Schopenhauer developed the same theory. “Death,” he said,[161] “is the real inspiring genius of philosophy.... Without death it is doubtful if philosophy would exist at all. It is therefore quite natural that a special essay on Death should preface the last, the most serious, and the most important of my books.”
Judging from the facts set forth in the last three chapters, there can be no doubt but that the human constitution, although in many ways perfect and sublime, exhibits numerous and serious disharmonies, which are the source of all our troubles. Not being so well adapted to the conditions of life as orchids are, for example, in the matter of their fertilisation by the mediation of insects, or the burrowing wasps for the protection of their young, humanity resembles rather those insects the instinct of which guides them towards the flame which burns their wings.
Even at a time when humanity had attained no definite knowledge of itself, a vague suspicion prevailed as to the existence of disharmonies, and an effort was made to remedy the evil. The following chapters will show what man has done with a view to remedying the natural disharmonies of his constitution.