Thoughts, philosophical and medical / selected from the works of Francis Bacon ; with an essay on his health and medical writings by John Dowson.

  • Francis Bacon
Date:
[1867]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoughts, philosophical and medical / selected from the works of Francis Bacon ; with an essay on his health and medical writings by John Dowson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    79/80 page 79
    hopGS; mirtli rather than joy ; variety of delights, rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and there- fore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature. Essay xxx. W. vi, 453. Envy is the worst passion, .... and it is so much the worse because it is always at work, and (as they say) keeps no holidays. Hope is of all affections the most useful, and contributes most to prolong life, if it be not too often disappointed, but feed the imagination with the prospect of good. They therefore who set up and propose some definite end as their mark in life, and continually and gradually advance thereto, are mostly long-lived. Admiration and hght contemplation are of very great effect in prolonging life And hence all contemplators of nature, who had so many and such great wonders to admire, as Democritus, Plato, Parmenides, and Apollonius, were long-lived. The rhetoricians likewise, who did but taste matters hghtly, and busied themselves rather about light of speech than the darkness of things, as Gorgias, Protagoras, Isocrates, and Seneca, were long-lived. And certainly as old men are generally talkative and garrulous, so talkative persons very often grow to a great age. It doubtless tends to longevity to have all things grow- ing smoother and easier as age comes on: so that a youth spent in toil may sweeten old age. The thing above all others most pleasing to the spirits is a continual advance to the better. Youth and manhood
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