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