Secondly, because the
Sense is preserved by it. It might likewise proceed from the Oscitancy
of Transcribers, who, to dispatch their Work the sooner, use to write
all Numbers in Cypher, and seeing the Figure 1 following by a little
Dash of the Pen, as is customary in old Manuscripts, they perhaps
mistook the Dash for a second Figure, and by casting up both together
composed out of them the Figure 2. But this I shall leave to the
Learned, without determining any thing in a Matter of so great
Uncertainty.

C.

[Footnote 1: [Song, which by the way is a beautiful Descant upon a
single Thought, like the Compositions of the best Ancient Lyrick Poets,
I say we will suppose this Song]]

* * * * *

No. 471. Saturday, August 30, 1712. Addison.

[Greek: 'En elpisin chrae tous sophous echein bion.]--Euripid.

The _Time present_ seldom affords sufficient Employment to the Mind of
Man. Objects of Pain or Pleasure, Love or Admiration, do not lie thick
enough together in Life to keep the Soul in constant Action, and supply
an immediate Exercise to its Faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy
this Defect, that the Mind may not want Business, but always have
Materials for thinking, she is endowed with certain Powers, that can
recall what is passed, and anticipate what is to come.

That wonderful Faculty, which we call the Memory, is perpetually looking
back, when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those
Repositories in several Animals, that are filled with Stores of their
former Food, on which they may ruminate when their present Pasture
fails.

As the Memory relieves the Mind in her vacant Moments, and prevents any
Chasms of Thought by Ideas of what is _past_, we have other Faculties
that agitate and employ her upon what _is to come_. These are the
Passions of Hope and Fear.

By these two Passions we reach forward into Futurity, and bring up to
our present Thoughts Objects that lie hid in the remotest Depths of
Time. We suffer Misery, and enjoy Happiness, before they are in Being;
we can set the Sun and Stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandring
into those retired Parts of Eternity, when the Heavens and Earth shall
be no more.

By the way, who can imagine that the Existence of a Creature is to be
circumscribed by Time, whose Thoughts are not? But I shall, in this
Paper, confine my self to that particular Passion which goe