s in conversation are not
easily understood: whereby the enjoyment, and one of the greatest
conveniencies of life, are gradually lost. Hence in the jewish
history, Barzillai, at eighty years of age, complains that he could no
longer _hear the voice of the singing men and singing women_.[79]

[79] _Samuel, (al. Kings) ii. Chap. xix. Verse 35._

These defects of the organs of hearing, are immediately followed by
those of the sense of feeling. Now _the touch_, as Cicero says, _is
uniformly spread over the whole body; that we may feel all strokes and
appulses of things_.[80] Wherefore this sense, besides its other
uses, contributes vastly to the safety of the body, and the removal of
many evils, to which it is perpetually exposed. And this the sagacious
author seems to have principally in view, when he says: _They shall be
afraid of high places, and stumblings in the way_. For as old folks
are unsure of foot, even in a plain smooth way, by reason of the
weakness of their limbs; so when they come to a rugged uneven road,
thro' the dulness of this sense, they do not soon enough perceive the
depressions or elevations of the ground whereby they run the hazard of
stumbling and hurting their feet. Therefore they are not unjustly
represented as being _afraid_.

[80] _Nat. Deor. ii. 56._

The only one that remains of the senses is that of smelling, the
diminution of which in old men, he describes with equal elegance and
brevity in this manner: _the almond tree shall flower_. By which words
he seems to mean, that old people, as if they lived in a perpetual
winter, no longer perceive the agreeable odors exhaling from plants
and flowers in the spring and summer seasons. That this tree flowers
in winter, we learn from Pliny, who in treating of it says: _The
almond tree flowers the first of all trees, in the month of
January_.[81] I am not to learn, that these words are by most
interpreters understood as relating to grey hairs, which being
generally a sure token of old age, they would have us believe, are
denoted by the white flowers of the almond tree. But then, who can
imagine, that this wise author, after having indicated the defects of
four of the senses, by clear and distinct marks, would designedly
pass over the fifth in silence? Besides, white hairs are by no means
to be esteemed a sure and indubitable token of old-age; since there
are not a few to be found, who turn gray in the middle stage of life,
before their bod