ABSTRACT
Wisdom is the ultimate virtue of the human mind and personality. A satisfying sense of natural justice would be enjoyed by those with a warm regard for the status of older persons, if it could be argued with conviction that ageing and wisdom attend each other and advance together. The contemporary burst of interest in the relationship between ageing and wisdom stems from the middle of the 19th century when psychology, as a self-supporting discipline, was separating itself from philosophy, its main historical parent. From the days of classical Greece, philosophers had focused upon the nature and sources of wisdom. The proposition that the acquisition of wisdom accompanies chronological ageing implies a growth drive within the personality motivating self-development and a concern for others. Jungian theory suggests that beliefs that ageing and wisdom advance together have their sources in the archaic contents of the sub-conscious, acquired through the common experiences of people during the millennia of evolution.
