| [No. 289] | Thursday, January 31, 1712 | Addison |
Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.
Hor.
Upon taking my Seat in a Coffee-house I often draw the Eyes of the whole Room upon me, when in the hottest Seasons of News, and at a time that perhaps the Dutch Mail is just come in, they hear me ask the Coffee-man for his last Week's Bill of Mortality: I find that I have been sometimes taken on this occasion for a Parish Sexton, sometimes for an Undertaker, and sometimes for a Doctor of Physick. In this, however, I am guided by the Spirit of a Philosopher, as I take occasion from hence to reflect upon the regular Encrease and Diminution of Mankind, and consider the several various Ways through which we pass from Life to Eternity. I am very well pleased with these Weekly Admonitions, that bring into my Mind such Thoughts as ought to be the daily Entertainment of every reasonable Creature; and can consider, with Pleasure to my self, by which of those Deliverances, or, as we commonly call them, Distempers, I may possibly make my Escape out of this World of Sorrows, into that Condition of Existence, wherein I hope to be Happier than it is possible for me at present to conceive.
But this is not all the Use I make of the above-mentioned Weekly Paper.
Bill of Mortality
is in my Opinion an unanswerable Argument for a Providence. How can we, without supposing our selves under the constant Care of a Supreme Being, give any possible Account for that nice Proportion, which we find in every great City, between the Deaths and Births of its Inhabitants, and between the Number of Males and that of Females, who are brought into the World? What else could adjust in so exact a manner the Recruits of every Nation to its Losses, and divide these new Supplies of People into such equal Bodies of both Sexes? Chance could never hold the Balance with so steady a Hand. Were we not counted out by an intelligent Supervisor, we should sometimes be over-charged with Multitudes, and at others waste away into a Desart: We should be sometimes a
populus virorum