they are high-minded; for they have not as yet been humbled by the course of life, but are inexperienced in peremptory circumstances; again, high-mindedness is the deeming one's self worthy of much; and this belongs to persons of sanguine expectations. And they prefer succeeding in an honorable sense rather than in points of expediency; for they live more in conformity to moral feeling than to mere calculations; and calculation is of the expedient, moral excellence, however, of that which is honorable. Again, they are fond of friends and companions, by reason of their delighting in social intercourse. And all their errors are on the side of excess; for their friendships are in excess, their hatreds are in excess, and they do everything else with the same degree of earnestness; they think also that they know everything, and firmly asseverate that they do; for this is the cause of their pushing everything to an excess. They are likewise prone to pity; and they are also fond of mirth, on which account they are also of a facetious turn." "II. _The old._--Those who are advanced in life are of dispositions in most points the very opposite of those of the young. Since by reason of their having lived many years, and having been deceived in the greater number of instances, and having come to the conclusion, too, that the majority of human affairs are but worthless, they do not positively asseverate anything, and err in everything more on the side of defect than they ought. And they always '_suppose_' but never '_know_' certainly; and questioning everything, they always subjoin a '_perhaps_,' or a '_possibly_.' Moreover, they are apt to be suspicious from distrust, and they are distrustful from their experience. And they are pusillanimous from their having been humbled by the course of life; for they raise their desires to nothing great or vast, but to things only which conduce to support of life. And they are timid and apprehensive of everything; for their disposition is the reverse of that of the young; for they have been chilled by years; and yet they are attached to life, and particularly at its closing day. [They are apt to despond.] And they live more in memory than in hope; for the remnant of life is brief, and what has passed is considerable. And their desires have, some, abandoned them, the others are faint. They are neither facetious nor fond of mirth. "III. _Mature age._--Those who are in their prime will, it is evident, be in a mean in point of disposition between the young and the old, subtracting the excesses of each: being neither rash in too great a degree, nor too much given to fear, but keeping themselves right in respect to both. And they are of a tempering coolness joined with spirit, and are spirited not without temperate coolness. And thus, in a word, whatever advantages youth and age have divided between them, the middle age possesses both."