548 CHANGE OF MENTAL QUALITIES. 



Up to the fourteenth year, the human being lives solely for itself; its 

 Gradual instincts are for the gratification of its present wants, and 

 change in the t j lose wan ts are, for the most part, connected with its vegeta- 

 ties. tive development. After that period its life is for the future, 



and is in relation to the race. With this more elevated condition, new 

 emotions and passions have been awakened ; there is a gradual unfolding 

 of the mental powers, and a balancing arising from increased knowledge 

 and increased experience ; yet, even now, the mental qualities that are 

 most marked are only the extension of those the germ of which may be 

 discovered at the first dawn of reason, and the same may be said even 

 of our intellectual impressions. The ideas we have gathered as members 

 of a family are reproduced and expanded in our religious views, and the 

 government of GOD is presented to the human heart less acceptably when 

 he is set forth as the Almighty Maker of the world than as the Universal 

 Father and Giver of all good. 



In a preceding chapter I have already shown how the existence of the 

 Parallel of cor- immaterial spirit of man may be investigated physiologically, 

 mental Tevel- ^ ma 7 no * ^ e out of place here to dispose of an argument 

 opment. that some have insisted on, that, since the development of 



the mind proceeds in an equal step with the development of the body, 

 each expanding or declining with the other, the dissolution of the animal 

 fabric is the token of the death of the soul. Against this doctrine the 

 whole human family, in all ages, has borne its testimony, and, if univer- 

 sal ^impressions arise from physical constitution far more than they do 

 from tradition, it may be truly said that that doctrine is incompatible 

 with the organization of man. Probably there is no question which has 

 received a greater amount of individual and general attention none 

 which has more deeply exercised the thought of the profoundest intellect ; 

 and what is the actual result ? Whatever may be the social state, bar- 

 barous or polished, whatever the manner of life, whatever the climate, 

 whatever the form of religion, the assertion of the existence of the spirit 

 after death is so universal, that it may be termed one of the organic dog- 

 mas of our race. Indeed, we may affirm that the mind has to be edu- 

 cated, trained, or strained before it becomes capable of an opposite view, 

 which, even then, will be doubtingly entertained. 



If there is a point in natural philosophy which may be regarded as 

 independent ^ na ^7 settled, it is the imperishability of the chemical ele- 

 existence of ments and the everlasting duration of force. With the sys- 

 tem of nature existing as it is, we can not admit that an atom 

 of any kind can ever be destroyed ; and a like assertion may be made 

 of force. Heat may give rise to motion, motion to electricity, electricity 

 to heat : one kind of force may be converted into another, there being a 

 perfect correlation or quality of substitution among them. The quan- 



