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Untitled Article
their appropriate good , without iany admixture of the evils which ati excessive indulgence in them is sure to bring . After dinner it was his custom to enter with his disciple or friend ( for seldom more than one , and never more than two , dined with him on the same day ) on the discussion of the subject , whatever it might be , which had brought them together ; and it was at this time also , that , in the form of dictation , in relation to those subjects which admit of this mode of
composition , his disciple writing down his words as he uttered them , he treated of some of the subjects which have occupied his closest attention , and in the investigation of which he has displayed the greatest degree of originality and invention . In this manner was composed the greatest part of the ' Deontology / and nearly the whole of his 4 Autobiography . ' At all times it was a fine exercise of the understanding , and sometimes an exquisite gratification of the noblest and best feelings of the heart , to be engaged in this service .
* He was capable of great severity and continuity of mental labour . For upwards of half a century he devoted seldom less than eight , often ten , and occasionally twelve hours of every day , to intense study . This was the more remarkable , as his physical constitution was by no means strong . His health , during the periods of childhood , youth , and adolescence , was infirm ; it was not until the age of manhood that it acquired some degree of vigour : but that vigour in-1
creased with advancing age , so that duringthe space of sixty years he never laboured under any serious malady , and rarely suffered even from slight indisposition ; and at the age of eighty-four he looked no older , and constitutionally was not older , than most men are at sixty *; thus adding- another illustrious name to the splendid catalogue which establishes the fact , that severe and constant mental labour is not incompatible with health and longevity , but conducive to both , provided the mind be unanxious and the habits temperate .
He was a great economist of time . He knew the value of minutes . The disposal of his hours , both of labour and repose , was a matter of systematic arrangement ; and the arrangement was determined on the principle , that it is a calamity to lose the smallest portion of time . He did not deem it sufficient to provide against the loss of a day or
an hour : he took effectual means to prevent the occurrence of any such calamity to him ; but he did more : he was careful to provide against the loss even of a single minute ; and there is on record no example of a human being who lived more habitually under the practical consciousness that his days are numbered , and that ' the night cometh , in which no man can work . "
* The last days of the life even of an ordinary human being are seldom altogether destitute of interest ; but when exalted wisdom and goodness have excited a high degree of admiration and love , the heart delights to treasure up every feeling then elicited , and every word in which that feeling was expressed . It had long been his wish that I should be present with him during his last illness . There seemed to be on his mind an apprehension , that , among the organic changes which gradually take place in the corporeal system in extreme old
* The morbid changes observable in the body after death coincided with this . The state of the blood-vessels and , of the viscera was that of a man of sixty years of age , rather than of eighty-five .
Untitled Article
712 Critical Notices . A —Lecture , 8 $ c .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1832, page 712, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1822/page/62/
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