HEIGHT OF MAN'S POWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 268, 12 November 1935, Page 12

HEIGHT OF MAN'S POWER.

Despite the assertion that maa jg'<L If old" at 40, it would appear that tt! I intellectual faculties of mankind t : generally, are at their brightest aad I any time between 40 and 60 yeai*! I age. Swift was 59 when his brain * I .birth to "Gulliver's Travels"T H f? I Stuart Mill 56 when his eZ - I "Utilitarianism" was published alt?I'**1 '** I his "Liberty" was written three v■ I previously. Milton's mind rose t • I highest capacity when, the I was between 54 and 59. It wag -i *p I period of his existence that he offrnJ I the world "Paradise Lost." Sir I Scott was 44 when his a Jg | appeared, and nearly all the B tm£ I which have conferred lasting fame I him were composed after the a ee I Cowper had turned the half I when he wrote "The Task" and «l? I Gilpin," and Defoe was within two I of GO when he published his wonderfi I "Robinson Crusoe." George Eliot I haps one of the most eloquent a'j I remarkable women writers who I lived, was near her 50th year when? Erf wrote "Middlemareh," and it was 6 , B$ cecded by tha.t powerful book "D an -J I Deronda." Darwin's "Origin of SpeciVi I was evolved by the philosopher when! I had reached the half century, and'lf I "Descent of Man" when twelve y e a« I older. Bacon's greatest work took 51 I years to mature, and Grote's "History t I Greece" a few years longer. ! I