The more we advance in age, the less is the quantity of blood that penetrates the skin. The redness of the cheeks disappears in old people. We no longer see then the rosy complexion of the young man and even of the adult, and which arose from the vessels winding through the cellular texture of the spaces of the chorion. The continual pressure of external objects increases then remarkably the adhesion of the subjacent cellular texture to the dermis. They are separated from each other with great difficulty by carrying the edge of a scalpel over the internal face of the chorion; a circumstance which is owing also to this, that the cellular texture having become more dense, is less easily torn; for this tearing is then necessary, considering the continuity of the sub-dermoid layer with that which enters the spaces. The exterior of the skin is uneven and rough. All the wrinkles of which we have spoken become infinitely more evident; many belong exclusively to this age. The vital forces of the dermoid system are more weakened in old age than those of most of the others, because it is more excited during life by external bodies. Most of these bodies then make no impression upon it. The habit of feeling has blunted the animal sensibility. The touch is exercised but rarely; for, as I have observed, this sense requires to put it in action, the previous exercise of the will. We touch, because we have previously seen, heard, tasted, &c. in order to correct or confirm our other sensations; now the old man, to whom every thing around is known, to whom nothing is new, is induced to touch nothing. Compare in this respect the two extreme ages of life. The infant, to whom every thing that strikes his eyes, his ears, his nostrils, &c. is unknown, who finds in every thing that surrounds him new objects of sensation, wishes to touch and lay hold of every thing. Its little hands are in continual agitation. To touch is a pleasure to him, for every new object of sensation is agreeable. If in his last years, man was transported into the midst of objects that never before struck his senses, he would oftener exercise his touch; but none of those things excite him among which he has always lived. Hence why old age is not the age of enjoyments. In fact all our pleasures are almost relative; we have but little that is absolute; now as habit blunts all the relative pleasures, which cease because they have existed, the more the sensations are accumulated by time, the less there are of new ones left to be experienced, and the more are the sources of happiness dried up. For a contrary reason, the happiest age is infancy, because it has before it the whole field of sensations to go over. Man at every step of his career leaves behind him a cause of his enjoyments. When arrived at the end he finds only indifference, a state very suitable to his situation, since it diminishes the distance that separates life from death.