308 TRANS. OP THE ACAD. OP SCIENCE. 



life, and do not reach high perfection by education. Man 

 alone, of all animals, is born physically and mentally the 

 most helpless; but by physical care and by education his 

 condition is raised from a state of utter helplessness to that 

 of physical and mental superiority. But there is still a wide 

 difference between this development of the body and of the 

 mind in man. While his body, that assimilates him to the 

 animal world, requires far more care than in animals to be 

 developed to its highest animal perfection, it shares with all 

 animal organization the common fate of gradual increase and 

 decrease. The human soul, on the contrary, by which man 

 initiates a new kingdom, that of rational beings, seems to be 

 throughout life under constant progressive development. 

 With every age of life the development of new faculties 

 seems to correspond. Thus, for instance, is the power of 

 imagination and poetical fiction more appropriate to younger 

 years, while the far more complicated and higher power of 

 abstract reasoning belongs more to riper years. Thus we see 

 men, who throughout life have cultivated their minds by 

 study, observation and self-thought, passing with the years 

 through the stages of poetical fiction, philosophical reflec- 

 tion, and abstract mathematical reasoning, and preserving 

 the richly developed faculties of their minds intact to the 

 last of their physical existence. Socrates was near seventy, 

 when he made his immortal defence before his worldly judges, 

 and sealed, undaunted, a life of intellect and virtue by the 

 death of a martyr for truth. Humboldt, as an octogenarian 

 crowned a glorious life, spent in the most universal philoso- 

 phical intuition of nature, with that everlasting monument — 

 the Cosmos. Milton wrote his greatest work at the age of six- 

 ty. But, aside from such heroes, what man of ordinary mind, 

 cultivating it throughout life, has ever found a limit to its 

 progress? Having mastered some science, having discover- 

 ed some truths, he penetrates constantly into new fields and 

 new researches, and with every exertion the work grows 

 easier, his mind becomes more universal, his prospect 

 wider, until suddenly physical decay steps in and hurries to 

 the grave what seemed to be destined for eternity. Is nature 

 really such a spendthrift of her forces? Can she annihilate 

 what she created with the germ of progressive perfectibility? 

 By no means ! The mysterious, intimate connection between 

 body and soul, and their mutual influence upon each other, 

 may often retard the progress of the mind, and the feeble- 

 ness and decline of the body may partially affect the "activity 

 of its spiritual companion ; but close observation will show 

 the fallacy of the common opinion, that the mind is declining 

 in years in proportion with the body. The mind has a lite 

 of its own, and is capable of progressive perfection from the 

 cradle to the grave. 



