JOG ACTUAL DURATION OF LIFE. 



tionally long. There is likewise a connection between the 

 quickness and slowness of ideas, and the circulation of the 

 blood. A man whose pulse is slow and sluggish, is generally 

 dull and phlegmatic. Raise the same man's pulse with wine, or 

 any other exhilarating stimulus, and you immediately quicken 

 his sensations, as well as the train of his ideas. In all young 

 animals the circulation of blood is much more rapid than 

 after they have acquired their full growth. Yonng animals ac- 

 cordingly are frolicsome, vivacious, and happy. But, when 

 their growth is completed, the motion of the blood _ slower, 

 and their manners of course are more sedate, gloomy, and 

 pensive. Another circumstance merits attention. The circu- 

 lation of the blood is slower or quicker in proportion to the 

 magnitude of animals. In large animals, such as man and 

 quadrupeds, the blood moves slowly, and the succession of their 

 ideas is proportionally slow. In the more minute kinds, as 

 mice, small birds, squirrels, &,c., the circulation is so rapid that 

 the pulsations of their arteries cannot be counted. Now, ani- 

 mals of this description astonish us with the quickness of their 

 movements, the vivacity of their manners, and the extreme 

 cheerfulness of their dispositions. 



Reaumur, Condillac, and many other philosophers, consider 

 duration as a relative idea, depending on a train of conscious 

 perception and sentiment. It is certain thai the natural meas- 

 ure of time depends solely on the succession of our ideas. 

 Were it possible for the mind to be totally occupied with a sin- 

 gle idea for a day, a week, or a month, these portions of time 

 would appear to be nothing more than so many instants. Hence 

 a philosopher often lives as long in one day, as a clown or a 

 savage does in a week or a month spent in mental inactivity 

 and want of thought. 



This subject shall be concluded with a single remark : if it 

 be true, and we are certain that it is so in part, that animals 

 of every species, whatever be the real duration of their lives, 

 from a slow or rapid succession of idaas, and perhaps from 

 the comparative intensity of their enjoyments, live equally 

 long, and enjoy an equal portion of individual happiness, it 

 opens a wonderful view of the great benevolence of Nature. To 

 store every portion of this globe with animal life, she has am- 

 ply peopled the earth, the air, and the waters. The multifa- 

 rious inhabitants of these elements, as to the actual duration of 

 their lives, are extremely diversified. But, by variation of 

 forms of magnitude, of rapidity of ideas, of intensity of pleas- 

 ures, and, perhaps, of many other circumstances, she has con- 

 ferred upon the whole nearly an equal portion of happiness 



