lull vigilance, or mislead attention, is contemptuously
rejected, and every disguise in which errour may be concealed, is
carefully observed, till, by degrees, a certain number of incontestable
or unsuspected propositions are established, and at last concatenated
into arguments, or compacted into systems.

At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the
contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new
conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative;
the opinions are settled, and the avenues of apprehension shut against
any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the
inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets
already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so
insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty.

In like manner the passions usurp the separate command of the successive
periods of life. To the happiness of our first years nothing more seems
necessary than freedom from restraint: every man may remember that if he
was left to himself, and indulged in the disposal of his own time, he
was once content without the superaddition of any actual pleasure. The
new world is itself a banquet; and, till we have exhausted the freshness
of life, we have always about us sufficient gratifications: the sunshine
quickens us to play, and the shade invites us to sleep.

But we soon become unsatisfied with negative felicity, and are solicited
by our senses and appetites to more powerful delights, as the taste of
him who has satisfied his hunger must be excited by artificial
stimulations. The simplicity of natural amusement is now past, and art
and contrivance must improve our pleasures; but, in time, art, like
nature, is exhausted, and the senses can no longer supply the cravings
of the intellect.

The attention is then transferred from pleasure to interest, in which
pleasure is perhaps included, though diffused to a wider extent, and
protracted through new gradations. Nothing now dances before the eyes
but wealth and power, nor rings in the ear, but the voice of fame;
wealth, to which, however variously denominated, every man at some time
or other aspires; power, which all wish to obtain within their circle of
action; and fame, which no man, however high or mean, however wise or
ignorant, was yet able to despise. Now prudence and foresight exert
their influence: no hour is devoted wholly to any present enjo