Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Rambler, No. 47

Tuesday, August 28, 1750

"The passions are diseases indeed, but they necessarily direct us to their proper cure."

Sorrow is perhaps the only affection of the breast that can be expected from this general remark, and it therefore deserves the particular attention of those who have assumed the arduous province of preserving the balance of the mental constitution. The passions are diseases indeed, but they necessarily direct us to their proper cure. A man at once feels the pain and knows the medicine, to which he is carried with greater haste as the evil which requires it is more excruciating, and cures himself by unerring instinct, as the wounded stags of Crete are related by Ælian to have recourse to vulnerary herbs. But for sorrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occasioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have lost or changed their existence; it required what it cannot hope, that the laws of the universe should be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past should be recalled.
(pp. 302-3)

Body::Disease

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Originally published semiweekly in 208 folio numbers: London: John Payne and J. Bouquet, 1750-1752. At least 46 entries in ESTC (1750, 1751, 1752, 1756, 1761, 1763, 1767, 1771, 1772, 1776, 1779, 1781, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1789, 1791, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799, 1800).

Text from Samuel Johnson, Works of Samuel Johnson (Troy, NY: Pafraets Book Company, 1903). Prepared by Charles Keller for UVa E-Text Center, 1995. <Link to UVa E-Text Center>

05/25/2011