This natural and necessary comminution of our lives, perhaps, often
makes us insensible of the negligence with which we suffer them to slide
away. We never consider ourselves as possessed at once of time
sufficient for any great design, and therefore indulge ourselves, in
fortuitous amusements. We think it unnecessary to take an account of a
few supernumerary moments, which, however employed, could have produced
little advantage, and which were exposed to a thousand chances of
disturbance and interruption.
It is observable, that, either by nature or by habit, our faculties are
fitted to images of a certain extent, to which we adjust great things by
division, and little things by accumulation. Of extensive surfaces we
can only take a survey, as the parts succeed one another; and atoms we
cannot perceive till they are united into masses. Thus we break the vast
periods of time into centuries and years; and thus, if we would know the
amount of moments, we must agglomerate them into days and weeks.
The proverbial oracles of our parsimonious ancestors have informed us,
that the fatal waste of fortune is by small expenses, by the profusion
of sums too little singly to alarm our caution, and which we never
suffer ourselves to consider together.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33