INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES OF MAN. 407 



from a painful and hazardous experience. Bui if nature has 

 created him thus apparently helpless, and denied him those 

 instincts with which she has so liberally furnished the rest 

 of her offspring, it was only to confer upon him gifts of in- 

 finitely higher value. While in acuteness of sense he is 

 surpassed by inferior animals, in the powers of intellect he 

 stands unrivalled. In the fidelity and tenacity with which 

 impressions are retained in his memory, in the facility and 

 strength with which they are associated, in grasp of compre- 

 hension, in extent of reasoning, in capacity of progressive 

 improvement, he leaves all other animals at an- immeasura- 

 ble distance behind. He alone enjoys in perfection the gift 

 of utterance; he alone is able to clothe his thoughts in words; 

 in him alone do we find implanted the desire of examining 

 every department of nature, and the power of extending his 

 views beyond the confines of this globe. On him alone have 

 the high privileges been bestowed of recognising and of 

 adoring the Power, the Wisdom, and the Goodness of the 

 Author of the Universe, from whom his being has ema- 

 nated, to whom he owes all the blessino-s which attend it, 

 and by whom he has been taught to look forward to bright- 

 er skies and to purer and more exalted conditions of exist- 

 ence. Heir to this high destination, Man discards all alli- 

 ance with the beasts that perish; confiding in the assurance 

 that the dissolution of his earthly frame destroys not the 

 germ of immortality which has been implanted within him, 

 and by the development of which the great scheme of Pro- 

 vidence here commenced, will be carried on, in a future 

 state of being, to its final and perfect consummation. 



