274 PSYCHOLOGY. 



all their different forms and relations ; and, as futurity has both a good 

 side and a bad one, the mind is apt to be more impressed with the 

 one or the other, seldom steering in the middle. These different views 

 of things will arise either from natural, or constitutional, or habitual 

 causes. 



It may be put down, as a rule, that everything in this world is 

 absolute: but, as all the leading causes of things cannot be seen, 

 because they appear to depend upon circumstances that are unknown, 

 or appear to be accidental, therefore the mind cannot lead up to the 

 absolute. It is influenced by some impression, arising out of the pre- 

 sent appearances, which may be totally different from the effect that is 

 to take place ; and so the present probability, on one side or the other, 

 determines the mind. 



Thus, then, is futurity visibly left to be undetermined even to the 

 mind of the most sanguine, which is perhaps the most weak. It leaves 

 in the mind a strange disagreeable uncertainty, which the pursuit of 

 present enjoyment does not produce ; because the nearer an event is 

 to happen, in the same proportion it seems the more certain to happen. 



This age is the perfect age of man ; and, at a medium, may be said 

 to begin at thirty years and to end at fifty years. 



This is the age in which the mind is truly employed ; the age in 

 which both the fear of disappointment, and disappointment, make a 

 lasting impression, because the object to be gained is not momentary 

 or immediate. Time hardly establishes a security : it rather exposes 

 an uncertainty. 



This is the age of madness ; or when, usually, insanity takes 

 place. 



As people draw towards perfection they become more and more 

 nervous : the nervous age is at about thirty or forty years ; but as they 

 go on towards the decline of life, they lose that sensibility. This is 

 equally applicable to both mind and body. 



One, at first, would suppose that the nervous state of body would be 

 the young state ; but it is not : this is a state rather of indifference 

 to impression, although it may be felt acutely ; there is too much love 

 of variety to dwell long upon any one object : it is an age which feels 

 quickly, but forgets soon. 



Thirty is the time when objects begin to last, when they begin to 

 make an impression, when they take possession of the mind. Fifty is 

 the age when indifference about all objects begins to take place; an 

 insensibility creeps on, the effect of which is similar to the first stage, 

 although arising from very different causes. 



Belief in general is stronger in children than in old people, although 



