76 AGE 



in his career without passing those stages that favourable to the growth of man, than those 



prepare him for the cessation of his existence ; which are to be found in the range of the known 



what do we gain by such an explanation? variations, whether natural or artificial. From 



Nothing ; for the term vital power which we the beginning there must have been established 



employ is but a hypothetical cause, or if more a direct relation between the organization of 



closely examined, is scarcely even this; it is the body and the outward elements; the latter 



but an abstract term applicable to a number of are nothing but stimulants adapted to co-exist- 



actions that do not occur in the inorganic ing susceptibilities, or to put it more closely, 



world. The vital power of a body is but the man is not made by, but for or with, the sur- 



collective manifestation of its vital actions, and rounding agents ; his lungs are fashioned in cor- 



to say therefore that only a certain quantum of respondence to the atmosphere which he breathes, 



vital power is inherent in it, is but to express his digestive organs to the food that is spread 



in other words the simple fact that those actions so plenteously before him, and his nervous 



are circumscribed. Discarding this explana- system to the subtle imponderable agents that 



tion, shall we say that the fact must be referred play about him; consequently as his organs 



to some deficiency in the media of the being's only act in concert with, and do not result from 



existence; that, although the aliment, the air, the media of his existence, a development be- 



the light and caloric are competent to the pro- yond that which he is known to acquire must 



duction of a certain degree of growth, they proceed quite as much from the former as from 



cannot extend it, and that, were their conditions the latter ; and the supposition, the value of 



different, the animal development would be which we have been endeavouring to estimate, 



more perfect. It is easy perhaps to suppose thus falls to the ground. If man could become 



this, but we do not see how it can be proved, a larger, more powerful, or more sagacious 



nor indeed that existing analogies favour it. animal than he now is, he must not only live in 



On the surface of our globe there is every different media, but must possess a different 



variety in the temperature, in the humidity, and constitution; in other words, the characters 



in the electric conditions of the atmosphere, that distinguish him as a species must be 



and every diversity in the articles of food em- altered. The question, then, that offered itself 



ployed ; in more limited spheres there are the remains to our apprehension unsolved by either 



greatest diversities in these several respects of the hypotheses. The limitation of man's 



produced artificially by the various occupations development is like the definite period of his 



of mankind; and although we find, both among duration, and a hundred other circumstances 



races and individuals, great varieties of deve- connected with his existence, an ultimate fact ; 



lopment, which may occasionally be traced to no event that we are able to discover intervenes 



some relation with the media in which they between its production and the will of the 



live, these varieties are by no means in proper- Deity. 



tion to the differences of the media, and in the Maturity, though varying with every iridi- 

 majority of cases the former are independent vidual, may be said to take place somewhere 

 of the latter. In the temperate zone, with a between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. It 

 due proportion of animal and vegetable diet, is a general opinion that it is a stationary con- 

 man appears to attain his most perfect deve- dition ; that when such changes have taken 

 lopment, and with however great skill he place in the frame, as render the human being 

 adapts these circumstances, he never surpasses capable of undertaking the various duties and 

 a certain point, and from what we know of his occupations to which adults alone are adequate, 

 physiology no great alteration in any one of the there are no further alterations till the period of 

 external stimuli of his existence could be tole- declining age ; that, in short, growth has entirely 

 rated. A different proportion of the oxygen, ceased. But this idea is not strictly correct, 

 nitrogen, and carbon in the atmosphere, we for there is in all probability no period when 

 know full well to be noxious; a larger or the system is absolutely stationary; it must 

 smaller quantity of aqueous vapour suspended either be advancing to or receding from the 

 in it will occasion many well-known maladies; state of perfection. This is of course more 

 the same may be said of alterations in the ba- obvious when we know that augmentation of 

 lance of the electricity that surrounds us. Great bulk is only a part of that process which per- 

 extremes of heat and cold may be borne for fects the organization. (See NUTRITION.) It 

 awhile, but it is obvious that they are not so is true that at the adult age the determinate 

 well adapted to a healthy state of the system, height and figure, the settled features, the 

 and therefore to its growth, as intermediate de- marked mental and moral character, naturally 

 grees ; and consequently it is not easy to con- give rise to the idea that a fixed point has been 

 ceive any degree either above or below these attained ; but a little inquiry soon teaches us 

 limits consistent even with existence. Fami- that the individual is still the subject of some 

 liar enough also are we with the effects of full progressive changes. It is the stature only that 

 and sparing, of simple and mixed dietetics, is stationary, for this depends on the skeleton, 

 and with the fact that between certain well- which ceases to lengthen before the period we 

 known bounds lie the salutary quantities and speak of. But the capability of powerful and 

 qualities. From all which it appears suffici- prolonged muscular exertions increases for some 

 ently evident, that we cannot conceive any years; there must consequently be a change in 

 difference in the amount or properties of the the muscular tissue. The intellectual faculties 

 known stimuli of life, that would be more have not attained their maximum, although we 



