He that would deliver himself from all apprehensions of the future, let him first take for granted, that all fears will fall upon him; and then examine and measure the evil that he fears, which he will find to be neither great nor long. Beside, that the ills which he fears he may suffer, he suffers in the very fear of them. As in the symptoms of an approaching disease, a man shall find himself lazy and listless: a weariness in his limbs, with a yawning and shuddering all over him; so it is in the case of a weak mind, it fancies misfortunes, and makes a man wretched before his time. Why should I torment myself at present with what, perhaps, may fall out fifty years hence? This humor is a kind of voluntary disease, and an industrious contrivance of our own unhappiness, to complain of an affliction that we do not feel. Some are not only moved with grief itself, but with the mere opinion of it; as children will start at a shadow, or at the sight of a deformed person. If we stand in fear of violence from a powerful enemy, it is some comfort to us, that whosoever makes himself terrible to others is not without fear himself: the least noise makes a lion start; and the fiercest of beasts, whatsoever enrages them, makes them tremble too: a shadow, a voice, an unusual odor, rouses them.