."^SO HISTORY OF 



them an easy and ready play, is now grown more scanty. It be- 

 comes thicker and more clammy, more unfit for answering the 

 purposes of motion ; and from thence, in old age, every joint is 

 not only stiff, but awkward. At every motion this clamniy 

 liquor is heard to crack ; and it is not without the greatest effort 

 of the muscles that its resistance is overcome. I have seen a!j 

 old person, who never moved a single joint, that did not thus 

 give notice of the violence done to it." 



The membranes that cover the bones, the joints, and the rest 

 of the body, become as we grow old, more dense and more dry. 

 Those which surround the bones, soon cease to be ductile. 

 The fibres, of which the muscles and tlesh is composed, become 

 every day more rigid ■, and while to the touch the body seems, 

 as we advance in years, to grow softer, it is in reality, increasing 

 in hardness. It is the skin, and not the flesh, that we feel upon 

 such occasions. The fat, and the ilabbiness of that, seems to 

 give an appearance of softness, which the tlesh itself is very far 

 from having. There are few can doubt this, after trying the 

 difference between the flesh of young and old animals. The first 

 is soft and tender, the last is hard and dry. 



The skin is the only part of the body that age does not con- 

 tribute to harden. That stretches to every degree of tension ; 

 and we have horrid instances of its pliancy, in many disorders 

 incident to humanity. In youth, therefore, while the body is 

 vigorous and increasing, it still gives way to its growth. But, 

 although it thus adapts itself to our increase ; it does not in the 

 same manner conform to our decay. The skin, which, in 

 youth was filled and glossy, when the body begins to decline 

 has not elasticity enough to shrink entirely with its diminution. 

 It hangs therefore in wrinkles, which no art can remove. The 

 wrinkles of the body, in general, proceed from this cause. But 

 those of the face seem to proceed from another ; namely, from 

 the many varieties of positions into which it is put by the 

 speech, the food, or the passions. Every grimace, and every 

 passion, wrinkles up the visage into different forms. These an* 

 visible enough in young persons ; but what at first was accidental 

 or transitory, becomes unalterably fixed in the visage as it grows 

 older. " From hence we may conclude, that a freedom from 

 pa^jsions not only adds to the happiness of the mind, but pre- 



