CHAP. I. CHARACTERISTICS OF REASON. 11 



and cunning at catching such birds and mice as it 

 can conquer, as is its mother ; and a young duckling 

 will swim, dive, and procure its food, with the same 

 ease and expertness as its parents. But the operation 

 of reason, as every one knows, is quite different. It 

 is dormant at an age when the animal instincts have 

 long begun to show themselves ; and only awakens, and 

 asserts its claim to he heard, when the passions and the 

 inclinations of advanced youth require that direction 

 and control which it was intended to exercise. But, 

 although it comes slowly into being, and is afterwards 

 always liable to be affected by the infirmities of the 

 body, its growth is not for time, but eternity. It may 

 be clouded by anxiety, dimmed by sickness, or perverted 

 by evil ; but still it does not, of necessity, permanently 

 lose its force, as do several of the animal instincts, in 

 proportion to the decay of the body. We pretend not 

 to frame any hypothesis by which to account for the 

 apparent extinction of right-mindedness, or reason, in 

 maniacs, further than to suppose that causes, moral or 

 physical, have operated to the total or partial derange- 

 ment of a faculty which, nevertheless, exists in full 

 force, although in a perverted state. But this is cer- 

 tain ; that the powers of reason, in sane and well-regu- 

 lated minds, are in their full vigour and expansion, 

 long after the animal functions of the body have begun 

 to decay; and that innumerable instances might be 

 quoted, of the reasoning mind preserving all its depth, 

 and acuteness, and discrimination, when the animal man 

 is fast approaching that age which the Psalmist has 

 measured out. To all but the Christian philosopher, 

 who inwardly feels that MIND is indestructible, and 

 therefore immortal, nothing can be more depressing, in- 

 consistent, and unaccountable, than to see those favoured 

 beings, who have been gifted with a high development 

 of this faculty, and which they are employing for the 

 good of others, gradually sinking into old age and de- 

 crepitude, at a time when their mind, although clouded 

 by a diseased body, is still sending forth rays of genius 



