50 OF HEALTH AND HUMAN NATURE. 



organs, can perform its functions, and mind continues ; but, as 

 in all other organs, when its life ceases, its power to perform its 

 function ceases, and the mind ceases ; when causes of disturbance 

 affect it, the mind is affected ; if originally constituted defec- 

 tive, the mind is defective ; if fully developed and properly acted 

 on, the mind is vigorous ; accordingly as it varies with age, is 

 the mind also varied, the mind of the child is weak and ex- 

 citable, of the adult vigorous and firm, and of the old man 

 weak and dull, exactly like the body ; * and the character of the 

 mind of an individual agrees with the character of his body, 

 being equally excitable, languid, or torpid, evidently because 

 the brain is of the same character as the rest of the body to 

 which it belongs, the female mind exceeds the male in excita- 

 bility as much as her body j f the qualities of the mind are also 

 hereditary, J which they could not be, unless they were, like 



* If of children it is said, " Intel- se quas pro levibus noxiis iras gerunt ? 

 Quapropter ? quia enim qui eos gubernat animus, infirmum gerunt." 



Terence. Hecyru. 

 The old man, " Res omnes timide gelidequc ministrat, 



Dilator, spe longus, iners " Horace. Ars Poetica, 



or in the plainer language of Shakspeare, " Old men have grey beards, 

 their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, 

 and they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams." 



Hamlet. Act. 2. Sc. 2. 



Mr. Dugald Stewart allows that " In the case of old men, it is generally 

 found that a decline of the faculties keeps pace with the decay of bodily health 

 and vigour. The few exceptions that occur to the universality of this fact only 

 prove that there are some diseases fatal to life which do not injure those parts 

 of the body with which the intellectual operations are more immediately con- 

 nected." Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 233. 



" Praeterea gigni pariter cum corpore, et una 



Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere, mentem." Lucretius, lib. i. 

 t " Mulieres sunt, ferme ut pueri, levi sententia." Terence. Hecyra. 

 J " Parentibus liberi similes sunt non vultum modo et corporis formam, sed 

 animi indolent, et virtutes, et vitia. Claudia gens diu Romse floruit impigra, 

 ferox, superba : Eadem illachrymabilem Tiberium, tristissimum Tyrannum 

 produxil : tandem in immanent Caligulam et Claudium, et Agrippinam, ipsum- 



