practise, what Tacitus calls, 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