ligence, than any afforded to our observation. Other creatures seem made but to perish, man to endure forever. They understand by means of the senses, man by reason, the attribute of Deity. The slow progression of the reasoning powers, is another proof, that the perfection of intellect requires another state of existence. Brutes in every respect appear adapted to the state in which they are found. Their knowledge or instinct, never of itself, progresses beyond selfpreservation and self-gratification. The first nest constructed by the little bird is as soft and complete as the last; the honey made by the young bee as sweet as that concocted by the old one; the first house built by the beaver is as perfect in its parts, and as commodious as any that may follow its construction. No community of these or any other brutes, ever made improvement in the arts of life. With mankind this is not so. "Reason progressive, instinct is complete." In instinct, man is below the lowest of the animal creation. Knowledge springs up like a germ in the mind, and advances by progress so slow, that it takes ages of experience and invention before an art or science is brought to any degree resembling perfection. The most learned and the wisest of men often look upon themselves as ignorant; so, at the close of life, Newton regarded himself as a child, who had been picking up pebbles on the shore of eternity. Another fact intimately connected with the preceding, is found in the circumstance that the decay of the bodily organs is no hindrance to the progressive state of the conceptive and reasoning powers, when kept in proper exercise. Many curious instances are related by D'Israeli and others, in proof of this position. Colbert, the celebrated French Minister, in the reign of Louis XIV., returned to his Latin and Law studies at the age of sixty. Dryden, the great English poet, commenced the translation of the whole Iliad in his sixty-eighth year, and wrote his most pleasing pieces in his old age. Michael Angelo, the great Italian painter preserved his creative genius to extreme old age; a device invented by him at that period, represented an old man in a go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it, with the inscription in Italian: Ancora impara! yet I am learning. Necker, the father of Madame De Stael, remarks, that the era of threescore and ten is an agreeable age for writing; your mind has not lost its vigor, and envy leaves you in peace. Another French author says, in a treatise on the reading and composition of books; "I should but ill return the favor God has granted me in the eightieth year of my age, should I allow myself to give way to that shameless want of occupation, which I have condemned all my life." Milton, Bacon, Newton, Locke, are all instances of the progress of mind until the latest period of life. Such was the vigor of Newton's mind, that in his seventy-third year, he solved in one evening, as a matter of amusement, the famous problem of Trajectories, the most difficult task that Leibnitz in envy could devise. In our own sex, Madame De Genlis, Elizabeth Carter and Hannah More, are examples of the strength of intellect late in life. Mrs. More wrote most, if not all her ethical works in her declining years; the Spirit of Prayer, her last work, was written at the age of eighty. Most of the efforts of her pen, so pleasing, so useful, exhibiting such correctness and strength in the reasoning powers, were written in the midst of great bodily infirmities: another proof, not unfrequently given in the lives of the good and the learned, that the exercise of the mental powers does not depend on the soundness of the bodily organs; why then should the continued existence of the mind depend on the body? Most of the illustrations above cited, were taken from the works of two late writers, Dr. Johnson and D'Israeli. Dr. Johnson says, "Volumes indeed might be filled with the prod igies performed by the mind long after the body had declined from the meridian, and even descended far into the vale of years, proving beyond a doubt that the powers of the mind and the body do not run so parallel in their rise, progress or decadence, as the materialist asserts."* D'Israeli remarks: "The old age of the literary character retains its enjoyments, and usually its powers, a happiness which accompanies no other. The old age of coquetry comes with extinct beauty, that of the used idler left without sensation; that of a grasping Croesus, who envies his heir, or that of the Machiavel who has no longer a voice in the cabinet, makes all these persons resemble unhappy spirits, who cannot find their graves. But for the aged man of letters, memory returns to her stores, and imagination is still on the wing amid fresh discoveries and new designs. The others fall like dry leaves, but he, like ripe fruit, and is valued when no longer on the tree."+ Why in the purely animal tribes do we find instict complete, while in the human mind reason is so slow in its developement? Why does it continue its progressive state amid the failure of the organic functions? When the body, en* Economy of Health, by James Johnson, M. D. The Literary Character illustrated by the History of Men of Genius: by the author of "Cur. of Literature." 1 feebled by disease, all its powers becoming more and more inactive, why does the soul then grow more vigorous as if in triumph over its decaying partner? Memory looks back upon the world, and thought is busy in the review of past actions, judgment and conscience sit in tribunal upon them, while imagination glances fearfully into futurity. Why does not the mind grow imbecile, and sink gradually with the body to its last repose? The philos The Materialist cannot answer. opher, Hume, who sported with death, as is said, in his last hours, and Hobbes, who, to demonstrate the reality of his existence, published in his eighty-seventh year, his version of the Odyssey, and in his eighty-eighth, his Iliad, could not tell. Death came to cut them off forever from existence. The soul, which in these infidel philosophers had sparkled in lights of its own kindling, went out in darkness. These towering and arrogant spirits became fools in their own reasonings, and consented to lie down at last with the brutes! There are those "Who resist The rising thought, who smother in its birth 'Man is eminently a social being. All the good bestowed by riches, pleasure, power, is unsatisfactory, unless it be participated by some kin |