332 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mental power. Here, indeed, at the outset, a serious difficulty is en- 

 countered. Certain signs of mental decay are sufficiently obvious, but 

 the signs which mark the progress of the mind to its maximum degree 

 of power, as well as the earlier signs of gradually diminishing mental 

 power, are far more difficult of recognition. This is manifest when we 

 consider that they should be more obvious, one would suppose, to the 

 person whose mind is in question, than to any other ; whereas it is a 

 known fact that men do not readily perceive (certainly are not ready 

 to admit) any falling off in mental power, even when it has become 

 very marked to others. " I, the Professor," says Wendell Holmes in 

 the " Professor at the Breakfast-table," " am very much like other men. 

 I shall not find out when I have used up my affinities. What a blessed 

 thing it is that Nature, when she invented, manufactured, and patented 

 her authors, contrived to make critics out of the chips that were left ! 

 Painful as the task is, they never fail to warn the author, in the most 

 impressive manner, of the probabilities of failure in what he has under- 

 taken. Sad as the necessity is to their delicate sensibilities, they never 

 hesitate to advertise him of the decline of his powers, and to press 

 upon him the propriety of retiring before he sinks into imbecility." 

 Notwithstanding the irony, which is just enough so far as it relates to 

 ordinary criticism, there can be no question that, when an author's 

 powers are failing, his readers, and especially those who have been 

 his most faithful followers, so to speak, devouring each of his works as 

 it issues from his pen; begin to recognize the decrease of his powers 

 before he is himself conscious that he is losing strength. The case of 

 Scott maybe cited as a sufficient illustration, its importance in this 

 respect being derived from the fact that he had long been warmly 

 admired and enthusiastically appreciated by those who at once recog- 

 nized signs of deterioration in " Count Robert of Paris," and " Castle 

 Dangerous." 



Yet judgment is most difficult in such matters. We can readily 

 see why no man should be skilled to detect the signs of change in his 

 own mind, since the self-watching of the growth and decay of mind is 

 an experiment which can be conducted but once, and which is com- 

 pleted only when the mind no longer has the power of grasping all the 

 observed facts and forming a sound opinion upon them. But it is 

 even more natural that those who follow the career of some great mind 

 should often be misled in their judgment as to its varying power. For, 

 it must be remembered that the conditions under which such minds 

 are exercised nearly always vary greatly as time proceeds. This cir- 

 cumstance affects chiefly the correctness of ideas formed as to the decay 

 of mental powers, but it has its bearing also on the supposed increase 

 of these powers. For instance, the earlier works of a young author, 

 diffident perhaps of his strength, or not quite conscious where his chief 

 strength resides, will often be characterized by a weakness which is in 

 no true sense indicative of want of mental power. A work by the 



