CHAP. XXIV. WITH BREAKS IN THE SERIES. 603 



man acquire the spiritual part of his being, and become en- 

 dowed with the awful attribute of immortality?"* 



Before we raise objections of this kind to a scientific hy- 

 pothesis, it would be well to pause and inquire whether there 

 are no analogous enigmas in the constitution of the world 

 around us, some of which j)resent even greater difficulties 

 than that here stated. When we contemplate, for example, 

 the many hundred millions of human beings who now people 

 the earth, we behold thousands who are doomed to helpless 

 imbecility, and we may trace an insensible gradation between 

 them and the half-witted, and from these again to individuals 

 of perfect understanding, so that tens of thousands must 

 have existed in the course of ages, who in their moral and 

 intellectual condition have exhibited a passage from the 

 irrational to the rational, or from the irresponsible to the 

 responsible. Moreover, it has recently been ascertained by 

 the statistics of our metropolis, a city falHng by no means 

 below the average standard in regard to health, that one- 

 fourth of all the infants which are born die before they are 

 a month old ; so that we may safely affirm that millions perish 

 on the earth, in every century, in the first few houi^s of their 

 existence. To assign to such individuals their appropriate 

 psychological place in the creation, is one of the unprofitable 

 themes on which theologians and metaphysicians have ex- 

 pended much ingenious speculation. 



The philosopher, without ignoring these difficulties, does 

 not allow them to disturb his conviction that ■" whatever is, is 

 right," nor do they check his hopes and aspirations in regard 

 to the high destiny of his species ; but he also feels that it is 

 not for one who is so often confounded by the painful reali- 

 ties of the present, to test the probability of theories respecting 

 the past, by their agreement or want of agreement with some 



* Physical Theories of the Phenomena of Life, Frazer's Magazine, July, 1860, 

 p, 88. 



33 



