For is it necessary to prove what every one feels within himself?
It is only necessary to make us feel it, if possible, more intimately and sensibly.
The people, indeed, replied DEMEA, are sufficiently convinced of this great and melancholy truth.

The miseries of life; the unhappiness of man; the general corruptions of our nature; the unsatisfactory enjoyment of pleasures, riches, honours; these phrases have become almost proverbial in all languages.

And who can doubt of what all men declare from their own immediate feeling and experience?
In this point, said PHILO, the learned are perfectly agreed with the vulgar; and in all letters, sacred and profane, the topic of human misery has been insisted on with the most pathetic eloquence that sorrow and melancholy could inspire.

The poets, who speak from sentiment, without a system, and whose testimony has therefore the more authority, abound in images of this nature.

From Homer down to Dr.Young, the whole inspired tribe have ever been sensible, that no other representation of things would suit the feeling and observation of each individual.
As to authorities, replied DEMEA, you need not seek them.