Truth is scarcely to be heard, but by those from whom it can
serve no interest to conceal it.
No. 151. TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1751.
[Greek:--Amphi d anthro-
pon phresin amplakiai
Anarithmatoi kremantai
Touto d amachanon eurein,
O ti nun, kai en teleu-
ta, phertaton andri tuchein.] PINDAR, Ol. vii. 43.
[Transcriber's note: line breaks and hyphenation in original.]
But wrapt in error is the human mind,
And human bliss is ever insecure:
Know we what fortune yet remains behind?
Know we how long the present shall endure? WEST.
The writers of medicine and physiology have traced, with great
appearance of accuracy, the effects of time upon the human body, by
marking the various periods of the constitution, and the several stages
by which animal life makes its progress from infancy to decrepitude.
Though their observations have not enabled them to discover how manhood
may be accelerated, or old age retarded, yet surely, if they be
considered only as the amusements of curiosity, they are of equal
importance with conjectures on things more remote, with catalogues of
the fixed stars, and calculations of the bulk of planets.
It had been a task worthy of the moral philosophers to have considered
with equal care the climactericks of the mind; to have pointed out the
time at which every passion begins and ceases to predominate, and noted
the regular variations of desire, and the succession of one appetite to
another.
Pages:
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323