THE SENSES. 209 



THE MIND. 



In concluding this chapter, I will add a few remarks on the mind, 

 this wonderful, unknown, mysterious, immortal principle, so inti- 

 mately connected with the body. 



With the operations of animals, who always perform the same 

 work in the very same manner the execution of any individual 

 being neither better nor worse than that of any other ; in whom the 

 individual, at the end of some months, is what he will remain through 

 life, and the species, after a thousand years, just what it was in the 

 first year contrast the results of human industry and invention, and 

 the fruits of that perfectibility which characterizes both the species 

 and individual. By the intelligence of man the animals have been 

 subdued, tamed, and reduced to slavery ; by his labors, marshes 

 have been drained, rivers confined, their cataracts effaced, forests 

 cleared, and the earth cultivated. By his reflection, time has been 

 computed, space measured, the celestial motions recognised and 

 represented, the heavens and the earth compared. He has not 

 merely executed, but has executed with the utmost accuracy, 

 the apparently impracticable tasks assigned him by the poet : 



Go, wondrous creature ! mount where science guides ; 

 Weigh air, measure earth, and calculate the tides v 



' * ' 



By human art, which is an emanation of science, .mountains 

 have been overcome, and the seas have been traversed ; the pilot 

 pursuing his course on the ocean, with as much certainty as if it had 

 been traced for him by engineers, and finding at each moment the 

 exact point of the globe on which he is, by means of astronomical 

 tables. Thus nations have been united ; and a new world has been 

 discovered, opening such a field for the unfettered and uncorrupted 

 energies of our race, that the senses are confused, the mind dazzled, 

 and judgment and calculation almost suspended by the grandeur and 

 brightness of the glorious and interminable prospects. The whole 

 face of the earth at present exhibits the works of human power, 

 which, though subordinate to that of nature, often exceeds, at least 

 so wonderfully seconds her operations, that, by aid of man, her 



Treatment. In inflammation of the eyes, which in nearly every case precedes blind- 

 ness, means should be taken to reduce or moderate it by cathartics, and forcing the blood 

 from the head and eyes to the extremities and surface. Elm bark and cooling washes to 

 the eyes, are well calculated to fulfil these intentions. In order to dispense with specta- 

 cles and preserve the sight, wash them night and morning with cold water and a little 

 white castile soap ; and more than all, keep clear of the surgeon and professed oculist, 

 you wish your eves destroyed. 



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