organs were not irreparably destroyed, there was no disease that he
could not cure; no decrepitude to which be could not restore vigour:
yet his science was based on the same theory as that espoused by the
best professional practitioner of medicine, namely, that the true art
of healing is to assist nature to throw off the disease; to summon, as
it were, the whole system to eject the enemy that has fastened on a
part. And thus his processes, though occasionally varying in the
means employed, all combined in this,--namely, the re-invigourating
and recruiting of the principle of life."

No one knew the birth or origin of Haroun; no one knew his age. In
outward appearance he was in the strength and prime of mature manhood;
but, according to testimonies in which the writer of the memoir expressed
a belief that, I need scarcely say, appeared to me egregiously credulous,
Haroun's existence under the same name, and known by the same repute,
could be traced back to more than a hundred years. He told Sir Philip
that he had thrice renewed his own life, and had resolved to do so no
more; he had grown weary of living on. With all his gifts, Haroun owned
himself to be consumed by a profound melancholy. He complained that there
was nothing new to him under the sun; he said that, while he had at his
command unlimited wealth, wealth had ceased to bestow enjoyment, and he
preferred living as simply as a peasant; he had tired out all the
affections and all the passions of the human heart; he was in the universe
as in a solitude. In a word, Haroun would often repeat, with mournful
solemnity: "'The soul is not meant to inhabit this earth and in fleshy
tabernacle for more than the period usually assigned to mortals; and when
by art in repairing the walls of the body we so retain it, the soul
repines, becomes inert or dejected. He only," said Haroun, "would feel
continued joy in continued existence who could preserve in perfection the
sensual part of man, with such mind or reason as may be independent of the