eculiarly likely to occur
during menstruation. Krugelstein and Lombroso, respectively, remark the
same tendencies.[18]

It is a matter of almost everyday observation that men and women in the
neighbourhood of fifty suddenly find themselves disoriented in the
world. Tolstoi, for example, who had written passionately of passion in
his earlier years, suddenly awoke, according to his "Confessions," from
what seemed to him afterward to have been a bad dream. In this case, the
result was a new version of religion as a new anchorage for the man's
life. It may be pacifism, prohibition, philanthropy, or any one of a
very large number of different interests--but there must usually be
something to furnish zest to a life which has ceased to be a sufficient
excuse for itself.

If freed from worry about economic realities, it is not infrequently
possible for the first time for these people to "balance" their
lives--to find in abstraction a rounded perfection for which earlier in
life we seek in vain as strugglers in a world of change. Thus old people
are often highly conservative, i.e., impatient of change in their social
environment, involving re-orientation; they wish the rules of the game
let alone, so they can pursue the new realities they have created for
themselves.

Socially, the old are of course a very important factor since a changed
metabolism sets them somewhat outside the passionate interests which
drive people forward, often in wrong directions, in the prime of life.
Hence in a sense the old can judge calmly, as outsiders. Like youth
before it has yet come in contact with complicated reality, they often
see men and women as "each chasing his separate phantom."

While such conservatism, in so far as it is judicial, is of value to
society, looking at it from the viewpoint of biology we see also some
bad features. _Senex_, the old man, often says to younger people, "These
things you pursue are valueless--I too have sought them, later abandoned
the search and now see my folly;" not realizing that if his blood were
to resume its former chemical character he would return to the quest.

Elderly people, then, biological neuters, come especially within the
problem of the economical use of the social as distinguished from the
biological capacities of the race. They affect the sex problem proper,
which applies to a younger age-class, only through their opinions. Some
of these opinions are hangovers from the time in their own