The art of living long : a new and improved English version of the treatise / by the celebrated Venetian centenarian Louis Cornaro, with essays by Joseph Addison, Lord Bacon, and Sir William Temple.

  • Cornaro, Luigi, 1475-1566.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The art of living long : a new and improved English version of the treatise / by the celebrated Venetian centenarian Louis Cornaro, with essays by Joseph Addison, Lord Bacon, and Sir William Temple. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    had formerly followed. All these changes must be attributed solely to the force of habit, which is truly very great. It is in consequence of this powerful force of habit, that of late, — indeed during my own lifetime and memory, — three evil customs have gradually gained a foothold in our own Italy. The first of these is adulation and ceremony, the second is heresy, and the third is intemperance. These three vices, cruel monsters of human life as they truly are, have, in our day, prevailed so universally as to have impaired the sincerity of social life, the religion of the soul, and the health of the body. Having long reflected on this unfortunate condition, I have now determined to treat of the last of these vices— intemperance; and, in order to accomplish all I can toward abolishing it, I shall prove that it is an abuse. With regard to the two other obnoxious habits, I feel certain that, ere long, some noble mind will undertake the task of condemning them and removing them from among us. Thus do I firmly hope that I shall, before I leave this world, see these three abuses conquered and crushed out of Italy, and, consequently, witness the return of my country to her wise and beautiful customs of yore. Coming, then, to that evil concerning which I pro- pose to speak,—the vice of intemperance,—I declare that it is a wicked thing that it should prevail to such an extent as to greatly lower, nay, almost abolish, the temperate life. For though it is well known by all that intemper- ance proceeds from the vice of gluttony, and temperance from the virtue of restraint, nevertheless the former is exalted as a virtuous thing and even as a mark of distinction, while temperance is stigmatized and scorned as dishonorable, and as befitting the miserly alone. [40]