In As You Like It,  (II, 7), Jacques delivers the famous soliloquy known as "The Seven Ages of Man."  Jacques was talking about a single person, but the word may refer to the entire human race also. That is the meaning in this version.

All the world’s a stage

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And all men in their time play lasting parts,

Their acts being seven ages.

At first the primate

Sniffling and shuffling in the forest’s arms.

Then the youthful human with weapons ready

and cautious morning face, creeping like snail

toward urban visions.

And then the philosopher,

Rising from anthropos with a glowing ballad

Made to his mistress, logos.

Then the ranger,

Full of dreams afar, and growing in power,

Courageous in act, sudden and quick in conquest

Seeking the glory lands

Even in the martyr’s fire.

And then the enlightened

In fair bright vision, with good science teamed,

With eyes alert and machines of vast domain,

Full of great thoughts and noble goals;

And so they play their part.

The sixth age shifts

Into the proud and doctored optimist,

Degrees on walls and grants too few,

His youthful telescope, long quaint, a cosmos too small

For his stellar vision; and his squandered heritage,

Changing now to toxic vapors,

Fouls and pollutes the land.

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is melting comfort and doomed primate,

Sans heat, sans light, sans hope, sans everything.

                                                                                   - J. Streed