Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God

by Will Durant

certain of the letters the Durants had published themselves in their 1977 offering A Dual Autobiography), but also various drafts of the manuscript for Fallen Leaves. What was lost had now been found and could be made known. The result is the book you are holding in your hands—the final unpublished work of Will Durant. Fallen Leaves is, perhaps, Will Durant’s most personal book, presenting Durant’s own opinions (rather than those of others, such as statesmen and eminent philosophers) on the major problems of life, politics, religion,

After the publication of Interpretations of Life, Durant returned to work on Fallen Leaves and would continue to do so until his death on November 7, 1981. Durant’s final years were inordinately prolific, as he not only continued his work on Fallen Leaves, but also found time to compose the book that would become Heroes of History, as well as to record his reading of this text in what would prove to be his final presentation of history as philosophy. Fallen Leaves,

However, it must be remembered that, in keeping with the

They are the received wisdom of a man steeped in millennia of history, of which he was always aware that he was but a segment of its totality (“a drop of water attempting to analyze the sea,” as he once said). Just as one must extrapolate from his chapter on Vietnam the broader historical insights that apply to a nation’s power, ideology, and imperial ambition, however

will allow readers to enjoy the full measure of these chapters’ wisdom without being drawn to any single statement or paragraph.

Here, then, for posterity is the “lost” (and almost never known) and final manuscript of Will Durant. It contains strong opinions, elegant prose, and deep insights into the human condition,

is all the more ridiculous since, at my age, a man is deeply rooted in the ways or views of his youth, and is almost constitutionally incapable of understanding the changing world that assails him, and from which he tends to flee into the grooves of the past or the safety of his home.

that I find myself incapable of doing anything else with continuing interest.

have one foot in the grave,

the thirst for unity draws me eternally on. To chart this wilderness of experience

and history, to bring into focus the future, the unsteady light of the past, to bring into significance and purpose the chaos of sensation and desire, to discover the direction of life’s majestic stream and thereby in some measure, perhaps, to control its flow: this insatiable metaphysical lust is one of the noble aspects of our questioning race. Our grasp is greater than our reach; but therefore our

Knowledge grows, but wisdom, though it can improve with years, does not progress with centuries. I cannot instruct Solomon. So, brave reader, you have fair warning:

We like them because of what in us is called selfishness—the naturalness and undisguised directness of their instincts. We like their unhypocritical

learns the nature of things by random movements of exploration. The world is a puzzle to him; and these haphazard responses of grasping, biting, and throwing are the pseudopodia,

For the rest he learns by imitation, though his parents think he learns by sermons. They teach him gentleness, and

Our children bring us up by showing us, through imitation, what we really are.

Life is that which is discontent, which struggles and seeks, which suffers and creates. No mechanistic or materialistic philosophy can do it justice, or understand the silent growth and majesty of a tree, or compass the longing and laughter of

Childhood may be defined as the age of play; therefore some children are never young, and some adults are never

Youth is the transition from play to work, from dependence on the family to dependence on one’s self. It is a little anarchic and egotistic,

Good oratory, said Demosthenes, is characterized by three points—action, action,

It is the age of abandon, and its motto, undelphianly, is Panta agan—“Everything in excess.” It is never tired; it lives in the present, regrets no yesterdays, and dreads no morrows; it climbs buoyantly a hill whose summit conceals the other side. It is the age of sharp sensation and unchilled desire; experience is not soured yet with repetition

Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, but for things to do; happiness is in making things rather than in consuming them.

we should never be so old as merely to watch games instead of playing them. Let us play is as good as Let us pray, and the results are more assured.

instruction in the care of the body should equal the lore of the mind.

Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire. It is Life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life. For meanwhile puberty has come, and with

at the same time that youth examines itself, it examines the world. It stretches out

youth discovers philosophy, and turns it into logic-bouts. The

The principle of the family was mutual aid; but the principle of society is competition, the struggle for existence, the elimination of the weak and the survival of the strong. Youth, shocked, rebels, and calls upon the world to

in romantic love, more than in the triumphs of thought or the victories of power, is the topmost reach of human beings. When we were young we married because romance had caught us up into devotion,

Or because our culture demanded it and expected it. Even though we had never., in fact, Thought through what the commitment we were about to make So we entered into the contract blindly thinking that it would all be good - not anticipating the road ahead and the meaning of the vow “in sickness and in health “. That then is the lesson one takes when entering a second marriage or resuming life together after a physical or emotional separation but knowing the road WOULD be filled with challenges but hoping that the time together would be more fulfilling than life apart.i

Desire is too strong to be dammed so unreasonably with moral prohibitions;

And that is why the priesthood is an unnatural state by denying the natural desires for intimacy and passion Celibacy is a burden too heavy for all but a committed few resulting in pursuit of relations with children

Perhaps when it is too late we shall discover that we have sold the most precious thing in our civilization—the loyal love of a man for a woman—for

Again. The edicts of the Roman church deny this most natural relationshipj

Youth, if it were wise, would cherish love beyond all

Wisdom, if it were young, would cherish love, nursing it with devotion, deepening it with sacrifice, vitalizing it with parentage, making all things subordinate to it till the end. Even though it consumes us in its service and overwhelms us with tragedy, even though it breaks us down with separations, let it be first. How can it matter what price we pay for love?

That is why we, as older persons, cherish our love to greatly and find love to grow and tenderness deepen as we age - knowing more than ever how precious our mate.

ON MIDDLE AGE

If these years are middle age. Then what is old age. See the next chapter but — have considerations of life’s transitions changed so much in 50 years

too. Biologically, middle age begins with marriage; for then work and responsibility replace carefree play, passion surrenders to the limitations of social order, and poetry yields to prose.

marriage comes late now

And later still in 2018

Perhaps if we could delay our sexual maturity till our economic maturity has come we would, by lengthening adolescence and education, rise to a higher plane of civilization than the past has ever known.

We have lengthened the age of maturation because many students are extending their educational years until the mid-20s and marriage is later in life than in our day when People married at the age of 20 or in their early 20s

old age

Is old the appropriate term here? Clearly it is older than youth but not necessarily old. The next chapter discusses old. What do we expect? How do we categorize youth middle and old age?

For example:

Review This chart during our discussion, what do people think about the wording in the chart. What words with a substitute if they do not agree with the wording inside of the chart

Starting at marriage

Never defined In years

Knowledge Wisdom Optimism Meliorism Pessimism Radicalism Liberalism

Define Meliorism is in as believing that things can be changed through effort

At thirty-five a man is at the height of his curve, retaining enough of the passion of younger years, and tempering it with the perspective of widened experience and a more mature understanding. Perhaps there is some synchronism here with the cycle of sex, which reaches its zenith at about thirty-two, midway between puberty and menopause.

But I had read that males are at their sexual peak when their late teens and decline after that in a progressive manner Although for many years I often said that the ideal age is 37 years At 37 years I felt that I was exactly what this author described, most of my life was established, I knew who I was, I had financial security, my children were thriving, my wife was good professionally and at that time personally my life was great. It was more than I had dreamed. I still thought I was in control of my destiny. It was before the “fall” on my 40th birthday when I discovered I had little control of many important issues in my daily life. Then came the 10 year crash!

After forty we prefer that the world should stand still,

Some truth in this

We perceive, at first incredulously and then with despair, that the reservoir of strength no longer fills itself after we draw upon it.

The discovery darkens life for some years; we begin to mourn the brevity of the human span, and the impossibility of wisdom or fulfillment within so limited a circle; we stand at the top of the hill, and without straining our eyes we can see, at its bottom, death.

Not yet. Not at 37. That realization that you are truly mortal comes a bit later. At least for me. In the frightening forties. Not the thrilling thirties. And before the forgiven fifties

The commuter is the picture of middle age.

This is the time that one realizes that “this is it. This is the peak of life and what I am experiencing now defines for the most part the rest of my life. “. It’s not going to get much better and is likely to plateau before starting the slow quiet decline into old age, lost opportunities, increasing illness, declining ability and finally loss of dignity needing assistance to bathe and feed and then the end!

Arrived, his importance subsides; instead of great decisions to be made he finds, for the most part, a soporific routine of repetitious details.

OR. He revels in the successes he has achieved- the recognition of others - the satisfaction of becoming someone of importance to himself at least but also to a small slice of humanity. A fulfilling life with children who are succeeding and a marriage that makes you WANT to go home after work

love,

Familiarity and fatigue have cooled the fever in his flesh. His wife does not dress for him, only when he has gone away and is no longer in her mind; he sees her in a disheveled negligee, while all through the day he meets women powdered and primped and