The theme of Rostand’s _Chanticleer_ is the disillusion of that gorgeous barnyard fowl from the fond and at first secret conviction, which he later confessed to the pheasant hen, that it was his crowing that brought in the dawn and that if he failed in this function the world would lie in darkness. The tragedy of the play is the slow conviction that the sun could rise without him. In Nietzsche we see the exact reverse of this process. His delusions of greatness grew with years and eventually passed all bounds of sanity. He became jealous of Jesus and came to believe that he had brought the world a new dispensation and that his own work would some time be recognized as the dawn of a new era. Robert Raymond[22] thinks it is pleasant to lie at anchor a while in port before setting sail for the last long voyage to the unknown. The passage from late youth to middle age has many of the same traits as growing old. We suddenly realize, perhaps in a flash, that life is no longer all before us. When youth begins to die it fights and struggles. The panic is not so much that we cannot do handsprings, but we have to compromise with our youthful hopes. We have been out of college perhaps twenty years. Napoleon lost Waterloo at 45, Dickens had written all his best at 40, and Pepys finished his diary at 37. We lose the sense of superfluous time and must hurry. We feel the futility of postponements and accept the philosophy of the second best as not so bad. We become more tolerant toward others and perhaps toward ourselves. We must not be too serious or yearn too much for a lost youth. It is like the first anticipations of fall in the summer. F. von Mueller of Munich[23] says that we can never tell when old age begins. Involution is closely connected with evolution from the start. The lymphatics, tonsils, and thymus begin to atrophy as soon as the development of the sex organs comes. Among English button workers it was found that young men did most; between the ages of 40 and 45 they did 80 per cent of the work they formerly did; 60 per cent in the fifty-fifth year, and 40 per cent after sixty-five. The power of observation is so great in youth that seventy per cent of all our acquisitions are made at this stage. Originality comes later. Age is more serious. There is less adaptation because habit is growing rigid. The emotional life stiffens and the intellectual narrows. There are more doubts. There is a stronger-felt need of recognition from others that is very deeply experienced in many ways. The capacity for producing original ideas comes latest of all. It is generally thought that the highest physical development is before 30. Some investigators think that physical deterioration begins with the brain but this is doubtful.