XLIX. I think there seems now to remain but one objection for me to answer out of all those that have been urged to what I have advanced; and that is, that although admitting some have a great natural superiority of talents compared to others; still, the impetuosity and fire which commonly prevails in the flower of a man’s youth, is apt to have a pernicious effect on his conduct. Granted. But besides the exceptions to this rule being infinite, as we every day see youths, who are very sedate and discreet; and to which we may add, that there is another passion very predominant in old people that is productive of much more mischief in public affairs, than the fire or impetuosity of youth; I mean the vice of avarice, in the operations of which, there is not a moment’s relaxation; on the contrary, the passion of anger, is only apt to be excited by particular accidents, and when the ebullitions of choler abate or subside, they are succeeded by long intervals of calm and tranquillity. Anger is a transitory fury, or a fever of short duration, whose attacks are sudden, and last but for a little while, and which in a moderate space of time vanish and disappears; but avarice is a harpy, that has nested itself in the heart, and is a dropsy of the soul, which increases and grows worse every day. The first, now and then disturbs and irritates the moral temper of man; the other, vitiates all his actions, because its venomous influence ever exists. The first grows weaker every day, and is enfeebled by its own exertions; the other, is incessantly gaining new strength, and becoming more powerful, _vires acquirit eundo_; so that avarice contrary to the ordinary course of nature, is by so much the more vigorous, by so much the older it grows; it is a passion, that not only acts in cold blood, but acts with so much the more activity, the colder the blood grows; and hence it is, that its mischiefs are not only greater than those produced by anger; but they are also much more incurable. Thus if the infirmities incident to youth, are pernicious in those who occupy posts of importance in the public line, those that are attendant on old age are much more so. PARADOX V. _All Handicraft Trades Should be hereditary._ L. In Lacedemonia, which was one of the best-governed states of antiquity, it was an inviolable law, as Herodotus informs us, that the son of a husbandman, should be bred a husbandman, and the son of a taylor, a taylor, and the same with respect to all other occupations where people earn their living by their labour. The same practice prevailed in Egypt, and prevails among the idolatrous people of Indostan at this day.