266 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 



tion. Nature presents to us much that is sublime and beauti- 

 ful ; behold faculties which delight in contemplating these 

 properties of hers, and in rising upon them, as upon wings, to 

 the presence of the Eternal. It is also a world of difficulties 

 and perils, and see how a large portion of our species are 

 endowed with vigorous powers, which take a pleasure in 

 meeting and overcoming difficulty and danger. Even that 

 principle on which our faculties are constituted a wide range 

 of freedom in which to act for all various occasions necessi- 

 tates a resentful faculty, by which individuals may protect 

 themselves from the undue and capricious exercise of each 

 other's faculties, and thus preserve their individual rights. So 

 also there is cautiousness, to give us a tendency to provide 

 against the evils by which we may be assailed ; and secretive- 

 ness, to enable us to conceal whatever, being divulged, would 

 be offensive to others or injurious to ourselves, a function 

 which obviously has a certain legitimate range of action, how- 

 ever liable to be abused. The constitution of the mind gene- 

 rally points to a state of intimate relation of individuals 

 towards society, towards the external world, and towards 

 things above this world. No individual being is integral or 

 independent ; he is only part of an extensive piece of social 

 mechanism. The inferior mind, full of rude energy and unre- 

 gulated impulse, does not more require a superior nature to 

 act as its master and its mentor, than does the superior nature 

 require to be surrounded by such rough elements on which to 

 exercise its high endowments as a ruling and tutelary power. 

 This relation of each to each, produces a vast portion of the 

 active business of life. It is easy to see that, if we were all 

 alike in our moral tendencies, and all placed on a medium of 

 perfect moderation in this respect, the world would be a scene 

 of everlasting dulness and apathy. It requires the variety of 

 individual constitution to give moral life to the scene. 



The indefiniteness of the potentiality of the human faculties, 

 and the complexities which thus attend their relations, lead 

 unavoidably to occasional error. If we consider for a moment 

 that there are not less than thirty such faculties, that they are 

 each given in different proportions to different persons, that each 

 is at the same time endowed with a wide discretion as to the 

 force and frequency of its action, and that our neighbours, the 

 world, and our connexions with something beyond it, are all 

 exercising an ever-varying influence over us, we cannot be sur- 

 prised at the irregularities attending human conduct. It is 



