a "vernacular
urbanity," make his bold jests, and give utterance to his saucy
innuendoes, with as much freedom as the best; but he will do it with a
wary eye, not knowing how soon he may feel his chain plucked! and
himself compulsorily reduced into the established order. His more usual
refuge therefore is, to do nothing, and to wrap himself up in that
neutrality towards his seniors, that may best protect him from their
reprimand and their despotism.

The condition of the full-grown man is different from that of the child,
and he conducts himself accordingly. He is always to a certain degree
under the control of the political society of which he is a member. He
is also exposed to the chance of personal insult and injury from
those who are stronger than he, or who may render their strength more
considerable by combination and numbers. The political institutions
which control him in certain respects, protect him also to a given
degree from the robber and assassin, or from the man who, were it
not for penalties and statutes, would perpetrate against him all the
mischiefs which malignity might suggest. Civil policy however subjects
him to a variety of evils, which wealth or corruption are accustomed to
inflict under the forms of justice; at the same time that it can never
wholly defend him from those violences to which he would be every moment
exposed in what is called the state of nature.

The full-grown man in the mean time is well pleased when he escapes
from the ergastulum where he had previously dwelt, and in which he had
experienced corporal infliction and corporal restraint. At first, in the
newness of his freedom, he breaks out into idle sallies and escapes, and
is like the full-fed steed that manifests his wantonness in a thousand
antics and ruades. But this is a temporary extravagance. He presently
becomes as wise and calculating, as the schoolboy was before him.

The human being then, that has attained a certain stature, watches and
poises his situation, and considers what he may do with impunity. He
ventures at first with no small diffidence, and pretends to be twice
as assured as he really is. He accumulates experiment after experiment,
till they amount to a considerable volume. It is not till he has passed
successive lustres, that he attains that firm step, and temperate and
settled accent, which characterise the man complete. He then no longer
doubts, but is ranged on the full level of the ripened members of