(From to proceed gradually, as upon a ladder. The climacteric year. Every seventh year is usually styled a climacteric; but others reckon only those years that are produced by multiplying seven by odd numbers, viz. 3, 5, 7, 9, to be such. These years they say, bring with them some remarkable changes with respect to health, life, or fortune. The grand climacteric is the sixty-third year; some add to this the eighty-first year. The other remarkable ones are the seventh, twenty-first, forty-ninth, and fifty-sixth. The credit of climacteric years depends on Pythagoras's doctrine of numbers, and seven times nine (63) is the grand climacteric, since it is the peculiar number, seven, multiplied by the perfect number. Nine is the perfect number as the square of 3, which is perfect, because it is the only number made up of its parts one and two. Such were once the trifles dignified by the name of science!