INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES OF MAN. 577 



feebleness require her aid and protection, is as 

 powerful in the lower animals, as in the human 

 species ; but its duration, in the former case, is 

 confined, even in the most social tribes, to the 

 period of helplessness ; and the animal instinct is 

 not succeeded, as in man, by the continued in- 

 tercourse of affection and kind offices, and those 

 endearing relations of kindred, which are the 

 sources of the purest happiness of human life. 



While Nature has apparently frowned on the 

 birth of man, and brought him into the world 

 weak, naked, and defenceless, unprovided with 

 the means of subsistence, and exposed on every 

 side to destruction, she has in reality implanted 

 in him the germ of future greatness. The help- 

 lessness of the infant calls forth the fostering 

 care and tenderest affections of the mother, and 

 lays the deep foundations of the social union. 

 The latent energies of his mind and body are 

 successively, though slowly developed. While 

 the vital organs are actively engaged in the exe- 

 cution of their different offices, while the diges- 

 tive apparatus is exercising its powerful chemis- 

 try, while myriads of minute arteries, veins, and 

 absorbents are indefatigably at work in building 

 and modelling this complex frame, the sentient 

 principle is no less assiduously and no less inces- 

 santly employed. From the earliest dawn of sen- 

 sation it is ever busy in arranging, in combining, 

 and in strengthening the impressions it receives. 



VOL. II. p p 



