cian farther declared, that he made no question of recovering any person hanged up for the same time; provided his neck were not broken by the fall, or stretch of the rope.*

SECT. X.

OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUTH AND OLD-AGE; WITH REGARD TO THE SIXTEENTH ARTICLE

OF THE TABLE OF ENQUIRY.

THE scale, or progression, of human life is this conception; quickening; birth; lactation; weaning; feeding by hand; dentition for the first time, at about two years old; beginning to walk; beginning to speak; dentition the second time, at about the age of seven; puberty about twelve or fourteen; capacity for generation; the menstrual flux; the growth of hair upon the legs and arms; signs of a beard; growth of stature to this state, and sometimes longer; perfection of strength, and agility of body; greyness and baldness; cessation of the menstrua, and power of generation; decrepid age; walking

*The instances of this kind should be carefully collect ed; in order to gain as much light as possible into the transaction at the point of death.

with a stick; death. The mind likewise has its several periods, though incapable of being described by the numeration of years; such as decay of memory, &c. of which more presently. The differences between youth and age are these:

In youth the skin is smooth and equal; but in old-age, dry and wrinkled; especially about the eyes and forehead.

In youth the flesh is soft and tender; but in old-age hard and dry.

Young men are strong and healthy; but old ones weaker, and slow of motion.

In youth the concoctions are well performed; but in old-age weakly.

In youth the viscera are soft and succulent; but in old-age dry and parched.

In youth the body is strait and upright; but in old-age bent, or curved.

In youth the limbs are firm and steady; but in old-age, relaxed and trembling.

In youth the humours are bilious, and the blood is hot; but in age the humours are aqueous and melancholic; and the blood is colder.

In youth there is a ready disposition to venery; but in old-age, a slower.

In youth the juices of the body are more balmy; but in age more crude and watery.

In youth the spirit is copious and turgid; but in old-age poor and little.

In youth the spirit is dense and fresh; in oldage more rarified, and eager.

In youth the senses are entire and lively; but in age dull and faulty.

In youth the teeth are strong and sound; but in age worn and decayed.

In youth the hair is always coloured; but in old-age, grey or white.

Youth is attended with hair on the head; but old-age, with baldness.

In youth the pulse is strong and quick; but in old-age fainter and slower.

In youth diseases are more acute and curable; but in old-age more chronical, and harder of

cure.

In youth wounds heal faster; but in old-age slower.

In youth the cheeks are florid; but in old age pale, or of a deep red, by reason of the blood thickening and settling in them.

Catarrhs are less frequent in youth; but more troublesome in old-age.

Nor can we recollect in what respect old-age improves the body; unless sometimes in corpulency the reason whereof is obvious; because the body in old-age neither perspires freely, nor

assimilates kindly; whilst fat is nothing but a redundancy of the aliment, over and above what is discharged, or perfectly assimilated. Some times also there is an increase of appetite in oldage, through the acidity of the juices: for old men do not digest well. But physicians lightly attribute all the particulars above-mentioned, to the diminution of natural heat and radical moisture; which is an empty notion, of no use at all. Thus much is certain, that in declining age, coldness precedes dryness; and that the body, when in the highest pitch and perfection of its heat, declines to dryness; whilst coldness succeeds afterwards.

We are next to consider the affections and dispositions of the mind. When I was a young man, at Poictiers in France, I familiarly conversed with a young gentleman of that country, who was extremely ingenious, but somewhat talkative: he afterwards became a person of great eminence. This gentleman used to inveigh against the manners of old people; and would say, that if one could see their minds, as well as their bodies, their minds would appear as deformed as their bodies: and, indulging his own humour, he pretended that the defects of old mens' minds, in some measure, corresponded to the defects of their bodies. Thus, dryness of the skin, he said, was answered by impudence; hard

ness of the viscera, by relentlessness; blear-eyes; by envy and an evil eye; their down-look and incurvation of the body, by atheism; as no longer, says he, looking up to heaven; the trembling and shaking of the limbs, by unsteadiness and inconstancy; the bending of their fingers, as to lay hold of something, by rapacity and ava rice; the weakness of their knees, by fearfulness; their wrinkles, by indirect dealings and cunning, &c.

But, to be serious, young men are modest and bashful; old ones, not so tender of counte

nance.

Young men are generous and commiserating; but old ones close, and harder of heart.

Young men have a laudable emulation; but old ones an ill-natured envy.

Young men are inclined to religion and devotion; as being warm in themselves, and inexperienced in misfortunes; but old ones grow colder in piety, through want of charity, a long conver sation with evils, and a hardness of belief.

Young men are resolute: old men more moderate.

Young men have a certain levity and instability; old ones a greater gravity and constancy.

Young men are liberal, beneficent, and lovers of their species; old ones are covetous, wise for themselves, and firm to their own interest.