was only released by a friend who was present. On being asked what he had suffered, he said that he felt no pain, but that at first he saw round about him the appearance of fire burning, which was succeeded by an intense blackness or darkness, and then by a kind of pale blue or sea-green colour, such as is often seen

also by fainting persons. A physician still alive told

me that by the use of frictions and warm baths he had recovered a man who had hung himself and been suspended for half an hour, and he made no doubt of being able to restore to life any one who had been suspended for the same time, provided his neck had not been broken by the shock of the first drop.

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YOUTH AND OLD AGE.

In connection
with the 16th
Article of the
Inquiry.

1. The scale or succession of stages in the human body is this; conception, quickening in the womb, birth, nourishment at the breast, weaning, beginning to feed upon such food and drink as are given to infants, cutting the first teeth about the second year, beginning to walk, beginning to speak, putting forth the second teeth about the seventh year, puberty about the twelfth or fourteenth year, power of generation and menstrual flux, growth of hair on the legs and arms, growth of beard, increase of stature all this time, and sometimes longer, fulness and perfection of strength and activity, grey hairs and baldness, cessation of the menstrua and of the generative power, tendency to decrepitude and a three-legged animal, death. In the mean time the mind also has its periods, though they cannot be described by years; as a failing memory and the like, of which hereafter.

2. The differences between youth and old age are these: A young man's skin is even and smooth, an old man's dry and wrinkled, especially about the eyes and forehead; a young man's flesh is soft and tender, an old man's hard; youth has strength and activity, old age decay of strength and slowness of motion; youth has a strong, old age a weak digestion; a young man's bowels are soft and succulent, an old man's salt and parched; in youth the body is erect, in old age bent into a curve; a young man's limbs are firm, an old man's weak and trembling; in youth the humours are bilious and the blood hot, in old age the humours are phlegmatic and melancholy, and the blood cold; a young man's sexual passions are quick, an old man's slow; in youth the juices of the body are more roscid, in old age more crude and watery; in youth the spirit is plentiful and effervescent, in old age poor and scanty; in youth the spirit is dense and fresh, in old age eager and rare; in youth the senses are quick and entire, in old age dull and impaired; a young man's teeth are strong and perfect, an old man's weak, worn, and falling out; a young man's hair is coloured, an old man's (whatever colour it formerly was) white; youth has hair, old age baldness; in youth the pulse beats stronger and quicker, in old age weaker and slower; a young man's illnesses are more acute and curable, an old man's chronic and hard to cure; in youth wounds heal fast, in old age slowly; a young man's cheeks are fresh-coloured, an old man's pale or rubicund, and the blood thick; youth is less troubled with rheums, age more so. Neither, as far as I know, does age bring any improvement to the body unless it be sometimes in fatness. The cause whereof is obvious; namely

that in old age the body neither perspires nor assimilates well; and fatness is nothing else than exuberance of aliment over and above that which is discharged or perfectly assimilated. Some old men likewise have an increase of appetite by reason of the acidity of the humours, though the digestion becomes worse. But all these things that I have here mentioned the physicians will idly enough refer to the diminution of the natural heat and the radical moisture, things worthless for use. This much is certain, that in the coming on of years dryness precedes coldness, and that bodies in the highest state of heat decline to dryness, and coldness follows after.

3. Next in order comes the consideration of the affections of the mind. I remember when I was a young man at Poictiers in France that I was very intimate with a young Frenchman of great wit, but somewhat talkative, who afterwards turned out a very eminent man. He used to inveigh against the manners of old men, and say that if their minds could be seen as well as their bodies, they would appear no less. deformed; and further indulging his fancy, he argued that the defects of their minds had some parallel and correspondence with those of the body. To dryness of the skin he opposed impudence; to hardness of the bowels, hardness of the heart; to blear eyes, envy, and the evil eye; to sunken eyes and bowing of the body to the ground, atheism (for they no longer, he says, look up to heaven); to the trembling of the limbs, vacillation of purpose and inconstancy; to the bending and clutching of the fingers, rapacity and avarice; to the tottering of the knees, timidity; to wrinkles, cunning and crooked ways; and other parallels which do

not now occur to me. But to be serious; youth has modesty and a sense of shame, old age is somewhat hardened; a young man has kindness and mercy, an old man has become pitiless and callous; youth has a praiseworthy emulation, old age an ill-natured envy; youth is inclined to religion and devotion by reason of its fervency and inexperience of evil, in old age piety cools through the lukewarmness of charity and long intercourse with evil, together with the difficulty of believing; a young man's wishes are vehement, an old man's moderate; youth is fickle and unstable, old age more grave and constant; youth is liberal, generous, and philanthropic, old age is covetous, wise for itself, and self-seeking; youth is confident and hopeful, old age diffident and distrustful; a young man is easy and obliging, an old man churlish and peevish; youth is frank and sincere, old age cautious and reserved; youth desires great things, old age regards those that are necessary; a young man thinks well of the present, an old man prefers the past; a young man reverences his superiors, an old man finds out their faults; and there are many other distinctions which belong rather to manners than the present inquiry. Nevertheless as old men in some respects improve in their bodies, so also in their minds, unless they are quite worn out. For instance, though less ready in invention, yet they are more powerful in judgment, and prefer a safe and sound to a specious course. They increase likewise in talkativeness and ostentation; for being less fit for action they look for fruit of speech; so it was not without reason that the poets represented Tithonus as transformed into a grasshopper.

PROVISIONAL RULES.

CONCERNING THE DURATION OF LIFE AND THE FORM OF DEATH.

RULE I.

There is no consumption, unless that which is lost by one body passes into another.

EXPLANATION.

In nature there is no annihilation; and therefore the thing which is consumed either passes into the air, or is received into some adjacent body. Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants, entombed and preserved for ever in amber, a more than royal tomb, although they are tender substances and easily dissipated. But no air reaches them into which any of their parts can escape, and the substance of the amber is so heterogeneous that it takes nothing from them. There would likewise in my opinion be a similar effect if a stick, root, or the like were put into quicksilver. Wax, honey, and gum have an operation of the same kind, but only partial.

RULE II.

In every tangible body there is a spirit covered and enveloped in the grosser body; and from this spirit consumption and dissolution take their origin.

EXPLANATION.

No known body in the upper parts of the earth is without a spirit, whether it proceed by attenuation and concoction from the heat of the heavenly bodies, or