LIFE. 
General ftate of man i 
Studious they appear 
Of arts that poli(h life-, inventors rare! 
Unmindful of their Maker. Milton. 
All that cheers or foftens life, 
The tender filler, daughter, friend, and w ife. Pope. 
Common occurrences; human affairs; the courfe of 
things.—This I know, not only by reading of books in 
my ftudy, but alio by experience of life abroad in the 
world. Afcham. 
Not to know at large of things remote 
From ufe, obfeure and fubtile; but to know 
That which before us lies in daily life, 
Is the prime wifdom. Milton's Paradife Lojf . 
Living perfon : 
Why (hould I play the Roman fool, and die 
On my own fword ? whilft I fee lives , the gallies 
Do better upon them. Shahefpeare's Macbeth. 
Narrative of a life pall: 
Plutarch, that writes his life, 
Tells us, that Cato dearly lov’d his wife. Pope, 
Sp irit; brilknefs ; vivacity; refolution.—The Helots bent 
thitherward with a new life of refolution, as if their cap¬ 
tain had been a root out of which their courage had fprung. 
Sidney. —They have no notion of life and fire in fancy and 
in words; and any thing that is juft: in grammar and in 
meafure, is as good oratory and poetry to them as the bell. 
Felton. 
Not with half the fire and life 
With which he kifs’d Amphytrion’s wife. Prior. 
Animal; animated exiftence ; animal being.—.Full nature 
fwarms with life. Thomfon . —Syftem of animal nature.— 
Lives through all life. Pope. — Life is alfo ufed of vegeta¬ 
bles, and whatever grows and decays. 
Life is peculiarly ufed to denote the animated Hate of 
living creatures, or the fpace of time that pafles between 
their birth and their death. 
A new mode of exiftence commences as foon as the 
child has quitted the uterus: various functions are added 
to the organic life, and the animal, which has not yet be¬ 
gun,,comes into exercife, ellablilhing relations, hitherto 
unknown, between the individual and furrounding ob¬ 
jects. While the organs of the internal life aCt at once 
in a perfect manner, thofe of the external require a kind 
of education, and arrive only by degrees at that perfec¬ 
tion which they exhibit in the fequel. The fenfations are 
at firft confuted, and offer only general images : habit gra¬ 
dually deadens thefe firft imprefiionB; and then the parti¬ 
cular fenfations come to be diftinguifhed, after long and 
repeated exercife. Thus a man introduced for the firft 
time to the magic fpeCtacle of an opera, perceives only a 
whole which pleafes him ; and he gradually feparates the 
fources of pleafure arifing from the dancing, the mufic, 
the decorations, &c. The education of the brain in this 
refpeCl refembles that of the fenfes ; all the mental facul¬ 
ties dependent on its action acquire very gradually the 
degree of precifion to which they are deltined. Percep¬ 
tion, memory, and imagination, which are always preceded 
mid determined by fenfation, are enlarged in proportion 
to their employment. The judgment, of which they are 
the triple bafis, at firft aft’oeiates irregularly notions which 
are themfelves irregular : its exertions are foon diftin¬ 
guifhed by greater ciearnefs; and they become at laft ri¬ 
gorous and precife. The voice and locomotion prefent the 
fame phenomena; the cries of young animals confift, at 
firft, of one unformed found, without any diltinCt cha¬ 
racter. Age gradually modifies them ; and, after repeated 
exercife, they acquire the characters peculiar to each fpe- 
cies. It is unneceffary to mention fpe.ech, as that is (g 
£vidently the refult of education. 
•Yoi. Nil. No, 858, 
633 
Themufcles of the newly-born animal are In continual 
action; but progreftion, or even Handing, cannot be ef¬ 
fected. Habit mult teach the art of connecting together 
particular contractions for the production of certain ef¬ 
fects. Until this period has arrived, there is a vacillation 
in all the motions, particularly the general ones, which 
almoft deprives the child of the power of locomotion. 
It is obvious, then, that we are obliged to learn the art 
Of extending our exiftence beyond ourfelves; that the ex¬ 
terior life acquires frelh developement every day, and de¬ 
mands a kind of apprenticefhip, which is not obferved in 
the organic life. Society exercifes a remarkable influence 
on this kind of education which the external organs un¬ 
dergo ; it enlarges the fphere of aClion in fome, contracts 
it in others, and modifies it in all. The occupation in 
which an individual is habitually employed, almoft always 
exercifes one particular organ more than the others. The 
ear of the mulician, the palate of the cook, the brain of 
the philofopher, the mufcles of the dancer, the larynx of 
the finger, &c. have, befides the general education of the 
external life, a particular education, which frequent ex- 
ercile carries to.a high degree of perfection. Hence, the 
mulician and painter become able to diftinguilh in a har¬ 
mony, or a picture, what efcapes vulgar obfervation. In 
fome inftances, this perfection of action in an exercifed or¬ 
gan is accompanied by an excels of nutrition, as in the 
occupations where particular members are exerted greatly 
and habitually. It is no lefs true, that, when one organ 
is conftantly occupied, the others are inactive, and appear 
to lofe in capability what the other gains. The philofo¬ 
pher who fpends his life in £1 is ftudy, and devotes himfelf 
to abltract meditations, condemns his locomotive organs 
to inactivity, and hence lofes the facility of exerting them: 
the dancer is in the oppolite llate. The obfervation of 
man in l'ociety will lead us every moment to fimilar re¬ 
marks : perfection of aCtion in the locomotive organs 
fcarcely ever coincides with that of the brain or fenfes j 
and vice verfcl. This obfervation naturally leads to a fun¬ 
damental principle of focial education ; viz. that we (hould 
never direCl the attention to feveral ftudies at once, if we 
wifti to fucceed in each ; that it is vain for any individual 
to cultivate various departments of human knowledge 
and exertion with an expectation of Ihining in each ; and 
that in general the fecret of excelling in any one, is, to 
be inferior in all the reft. 
We have laid that the organs of the internal life act at 
once in a perfeCt manner. When the child quits the 
womb of the mother, its organic life undergoes a remark¬ 
able developement; feveral functions, which did not exift: 
before, are now brought into exercife ; and thofe which 
had begun become more enlarged. But the organs, in ei¬ 
ther cafe, require no education ; they exhibit at once a 
degree of perfection, which thofe of the animal life arrive 
at only after frequent exercife. Digeltion, refpiration, a 
great part of the exhalations, and abforptions, begin at 
birth; after the firft aCts in the refpeCtive organs, they pro¬ 
ceed with as great facility as they will ever after poilefs. 
The glands, which had been hitherto inactive, or at lead: 
had produced a very fmall quantity of fluid, are excited 
by various applications to their excretory duCts. The 
paflage of food over the openings of the falivary duCts, of 
the chyme over the pancreatic and biliary tubes, &c. Iti- 
mulates the refpeCtive glands. The excretions now alfo 
begin ; all thefe phenomena are at once executed with 
precifion, and no education is required in the organs 
which exhibit them. 
As all the organs of the interna! life aCt perfectly at 
once, none can acquire in the fequel a fuperiority over 
the others., as in the animal life. Yet it is common, even 
here, for one fyftem to predominate over the reli; fome- 
times the blood-veflels, fotnetimes the pulmonary fyftem, 
fometimes the gaftric organs, and particularly the liver, 
are exerted beyond their due proportion, and give a pe¬ 
culiar character to the temperament. But the founda¬ 
tion of thefe differences feems to be laid in original dif- 
7 Y fe reuce 
