1. INTRODUCTION.
WALKING once alone in a pleasant grove to dispel my disturbing thoughts, and seeing that the trees were shedding their foliage, and that the falling leaves were flying about - for autumn was then taking its turn in the revolution of the year, and dispersing the decorations of summer-from being sad I became serious, while I recollected the delights which that grove, from spring even to this season, had communicated, and so often diffused through my whole mind.
(From the visible things of the world it appears that there is nothing which does not pass through its times and its ages, consequently also the whole earth with human societies.) 1
But on seeing this change of scene I began to meditate on the vicissitudes of times; and it occurred to me whether all things relating to time do not also pass through similar vicissitudes, namely, whether this is not the case, not only with forests but also with our lives and ages; for it is evident that they, in like manner, commencing from a kind of spring and blossom, and passing through their summer, sink rapidly into their old age, an image of autumn. Nor is this the case only with the periods of men's individual lives, but also with the ages or eons of the world's existence, that is, with the general lives of societies, which from their infancy, integrity, and innocence, were formerly called the golden and silver ages, and which, it is now believed, are about to be succeeded by the last or iron ages, which will shortly moulder away into rust or the dust of clay.
1 The text has inserted comments on the side of the page. These comments exist periodically throughout the text and have been placed in parentheses at approximately where they occur.
