Without entering into the province of the moralist or preacher, we may affirm here, that the passions demand great regard in preserving the health of old men. The motion of the blood in circulation is greatly affected and altered by them: and the nerves may suffer yet more. The whole frame is disordered by violent passions: and I have often seen diseases; and sometimes immediate death has been the consequence of giving full scope to them.

Nothing in this world is worth the trouble and distress men bring upon themselves by giving way to immoderate passions. Life is the greatest blessing; and health the next; and these both suffer by that fond indulgence.

That the circulation is disordered by passions, we know from the true and certain indication of the pulse. In anger, it is violent and hard; in grief, faint, and slow; terrors make it irregular; and shame impedes its motions.

These are sure notices of a disordered circulation: and old men cannot bear this, even for a time, without damage. The strength of youth restores all to its former state, when the sudden gust is over: but age is weak, and cannot. Philosophy teaches the governing our passions; and that is true wisdom. The old man should love himself too well to indulge them: it is not worth his while. Quiet and regularity of Life in every respect are his business: and as he is past the fluttering pleasures of youth, let him place himself above its troubles.

Good humour, and a happy satisfaction of mind, will give the aged many years; and much happiness in them. Discontent and disturbance wear out nature: but the quiet we advice, preserves her in good condition.

Of all passions let the old man avoid a foolish fondness for women. This never will solicit him: for nature knows her own time; and the appetite decays with the power: but if he will solicit that which he cannot enjoy, he will disturb his constitution more than by any other means whatever: and while he is shortening his life; and robbing the poor remainder he allows, of peace; he will be only making himself the ridicule of those who seem to favour his vain, and ineffectual desires.

In passionate people, what we blame as their fault, is often their misfortune. Some indeed, from a tyrannical disposition, have fixed this humour upon themselves by custom; with no other cause; but for one of these, there are a hundred whose fury of temper is owing to a disorder in their body.

We know madness is a disease: and violent passion is a temporary madness. This also arises often from a redundance of humours; and medicines will cure it.

Let the passionate old man consider, that he hurts himself more than any body else, by his anger; and he will then wish to be cured of its tyranny. Let him examine himself, whether it be a disorder of his mind; and then his physician, whether it lie in the body. In the first case the remedy is philosophy: but in the latter, a few medicines will restore him to temper; to that temper on which his life and happiness depend.

Let the hasty old man cool himself by physic and a low diet: and let him who is melancholy and gloomy, banish the everlasting fear of death by warmer foods, cordial medicines, and that best of cordials, wine.

These will drive away much more than the apprehension of death; they will put off the reality: for melancholy would have sunk the feeble, long before his time.

Of all states of the mind, a disturbed hurry of the spirits is most to be avoided. The blood and the nerves are disordered by this much more than by labour, or bodily motion; and they are much longer in coming to themselves again. Labour ceases absolutely when ’tis over: but the storms of the mind leave a swelling sea, which strength of body alone can calm; and in age this strength is faint.

No disease is more mischievous to weak old persons than a purging: and I have seen this brought on instantly by a fit of passion; or by a fright. Medicines have attempted to relieve the patient in vain. That flux which would have been stop’d, if natural, by a spoonful of chalk julep, or a dose of diascordium, has in this case reduced the person to a skeleton, and sunk him into the grave in spite of all help.

Why should the old man disturb his mind with anger? or what should he dread? death is his great terror; and he is very absurd who brings that on by lesser fears.

Joy, tho’ it be only a greater share of satisfaction, is, in a violent or outrageous degree, as hurtful as the other passions: it hurries the circulation vehemently and irregularly; it exhausts the spirits; and when excessive it has often occasioned sudden death. It is a violence of youth; it belongs to that period of life more properly: that can bear it; and to that let us leave it. Let the old man be as the Quakers in this point; always chearful but never merry.

Last let us caution also the aged man who would be happy, and would live longer, to combat with all his power that dangerous enemy covetousness. ’Tis known universally, and we have sacred attestation of it, that too great carefulness brings age before its time; and in age it brings death prematurely. The old are in no danger of extravagance; and the care of heaping up for others, when it shortens their own life, is more than any heir deserves.

Ease and good humour are the great ingredients of a happy life: and the principal means of a long one. Our whole lesson extends but thus much farther; that the old man love his life so well; and value so little all the accidents which belong to it, that he do not give a vain attention to a part, which may rob him of the whole.