ormally
denied and formally set aside. An interesting treatise might be written
on the rise and fall of old men. Civilization has not been kind to them.
In primitive times, as among savage races to-day, old men were kings.
Gerontocracy, that is, government by the aged, is the most ancient form
of government. It is easy to understand why this should be. In primitive
ages, all knowledge was experience and the old men possessed all the
historical, social and political experience of the State. They were held
in great honour and listened to with the profoundest respect and
veneration, in fact with an almost superstitious reverence. Nietzsche
was thinking of those days when he said: "Respect for the aged is the
symbol of aristocracy," and when he added: "Respect for the aged is
respect for tradition," he was thinking of the reason for this
assumption. That the dead should rule the living was accepted
instinctively, and it was their nearness to death which evoked honour
for the aged.

At a later stage the old man shared in the civil government with
monarchy, aristocracy or oligarchy, and retained an almost complete
control of judicial affairs. His moral and technical efficiency were
still appreciated. His moral efficiency to his contemporaries consisted
in the fact that his passions were deadened and his judgment as
disinterested as was humanly possible. Even his obstinacy is rather an
advantage than otherwise. He is not liable to whims and fancies and
sudden gusts of temper or to external influence. His technical
efficiency is considerable, because he has seen and remembered much and
his mind has unconsciously drawn up a reference book of cases. As
history repeats itself with very slight alterations, every fresh case
which arises is already well known to him; it does not take him by
surprise and he has a solution at hand which only requires very slight
modification.

All this, however, is very ancient history. That which undermined the
authority of old men was the book. Books contain all science, equity,
jurisprudence and history better, it must be confessed, than the
memories of old men. One fine day the young men said: "The old men were
our books; now that we have books we have no further need for old men."

This was a mistake; the knowledge which is accumulated in books can
never be anything but the handmaiden of living science, the science
which is being constantly remodelled and corrected by living thought. A
book is