The reason why many really live a brutal kind of existence arises, as we have seen, from the circumstance that human beings are constituted in a great measure with relation to mere animal life. They possess bodies formed on natural or physical principles, and confining their attention, either from ignorance or from indolence, too much to this body and its conveniences, they lose sight of the supernatural or spiritual relations of their minds, and satisfy themselvesas, well as they can, with brutal comforts and bodily enjoyments.

In these days when so much ingenuity is evinced in endeavoring to reduce man to the elements of nature, it is important clearly to see wherein the human mind, when permitted to be manifested, differs from that of mere animals. If a dog had a brain like a man's, say some physiologists, he would be reasonable and religious. This is the same as saying, if a dog were human he would not be a dog. All such ifs are simple impossibilities, because what is one thing can not be another. A human brain belongs to a human being, and no other being ever had such a brain; and yet the brain no more makes the man, or the dog, than the man or the dog make the brain. God constitutes his creatures, and he has determined that no creature on earth but man should voluntarily control his impulses for moral purposes. Man can train himself by the apprehension of a will wiser than his own, but animals can not will otherwise than as their senses may impress them and excite desires. Man can believe in God as a Lawgiver, and he can wish to love his neighbor as himself, because he can perceive that it is essential to the well being of all intelligences endowed with active powers, that they should mutually regard each other's interests, or they would be mutually injurious. Where are the morals of beasts-and what are their charities? Can a brute reflect on the probable effect of his conduct on the feelings of another? Can it perceive any

evil in its will? Is it capable of acting conscientiously? Can it put itself in relation to history? Can it arrange past facts into new pictures? Can it obey God, from love and gratitude? Can it trust to His hand? It can do nothing of the sort-and, therefore, until those expounders of natural history, who include Omnipotence only as a part of the theory of development, have brought forth for us some specimen of a quadrumanous or other mammal, not born of woman, but yet devout toward God, and consequently conscientious toward man, we must take the liberty of doubting their admission to the councils of the Almighty. But, alas! it is easy to find men so far resembling brutes, that they neither venerate the Author of their being nor justly regard the claims of their fellow creatures. But they are not forced to remain in such a state. If they are not idiotic, they may so attend to the doctrines of nature and revelation, as to see that the Maker of beauty is a proper object of love, and that He who harmonizes the universe by light must be the source of blessedness to all who obey His laws.

Whatever similarity may exist between the mental manifestation of brutes and the actions of some men, there is still an immeasurable and impassable gulf between the human mind and the brutal, which can be accounted for only from the supposition that God has imparted to the soul of man a power of desiring and of acquiring ideas in infinite succession, through which it may learn and love for eternity. The human soul can be educated on moral and religious, that is to say, on rational principles, because it is constituted to reflect the mind of its Maker, as evinced in beauty and order, or law and government. In short, man alone can acknowledge a Creator, or be instructed from his works and his word, to trust him and to honor him. Reason is the mirror of God, and reflects his image -and the soul of man, perceiving in itself this reflex

of perfection, is able in some measure to appreciate the love and understand the power, which belong to Him-who, as the one origin and end of being is the only object demanding his devotion and worthy of his worship. Until we find animals equally endowed, we shall have no reason to compare man with them. When they begin to exercise free will and conscience, we may talk of their morality, and then consider their expectations of immortality. They can not desire a spiritual life, or a conformity with the Divine will, by its embodiment in person or in action. They see neither life nor death, and truly, as before said, the man who lives not in truth, and loves not God, is so far like them. The lower order of mind from physical defect, or groveling mismanagement and ignorance, is humanly brutal the next order is rationally intelligent, so far as the use of this world's elements of knowledge and advantage may serve the purposes of thought and action. The third order of minds is devoutly spiritual, from some degree of Divine illumination in the understanding, by the entrance of truths addressed directly to the heart and intellect of man, as being conscious of entire dependence on the All-wise for every endowment that shall qualify him for association with the intelligences that bow adoringly and hearken to the words of God. In this order of minds the thoughts are apt habitually to take the form of prayer. They trust actively, they praise actively, they pray actively, they live silently, unostentatiously, divinely, efficiently, because they live feelingly upon the beneficence of the Might that thus always operates both on earth and in heaven.

Without spiritual knowledge, or the consciousness of good and evil, man has no free will, and can only choose evilly, selfishly, or simply to answer the sensual purposes of this bodily life; and thus it must be, until he so understands the character of his Maker as to love it, and to hate whatever is opposed to it. This

perception and apprehension of Divine perfection can be conferred only by God himself; for how can man willingly conform to the law of God, without being instructed by His Spirit? Thus men do the will, and learn the wisdom of God, by the operation and impartation of a creative power, which induces a change of mental direction, equivalent to a new nature in the thoughts and purposes of man, so that he becomes holy in body, soul, and spirit, by acting in faithful obedience to the demands of his Maker. Instead of seeking for a self-satisfaction for to-day, the really religious man should live, every conscious moment, with his mind set upon conformity to a higher, holier will, and thus seeking an unfading glory, and looking to God, find in Him the happiness, the end, the sufficiency of his being. He who is thus spiritually alive can not but believe in eternal life, because he has already begun to enjoy it in earnest; and he can not but believe in everlasting love, because he knows that if we, being evil, give good gifts to our children, our Father in heaven will much rather give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him; and thus religion proves itself divine— the end and purpose of reason to the man who receives the revelation of Heaven.

CHAPTER VI.

SELF-MANAGEMENT.

WITH an endeavor to simplify the science of mind, it has been my aim, I hope not presumptuously, always to keep in view the unity and individuality of the being which feels, thinks, and acts. It is a self, or a soul that is conscious of sensation, thought, and will. Whatever be the experience of the mind, it is a condition of the ego, with relation either to objects or the ideas of objects. It is a personal being, existing experimentally, and in the actual perception of realities. or in the remembrance of them, and weal or woe is the state of the individual in his inward life and selfconsciousness. But the soul of man has relation to a three-fold order of consciousness of thought or intellect; of feeling, or some degree of emotion; of desire, or some exercise of will. These correspond with the three-fold division of the nervous system, the cerebral, the cerebro-spinal, and the ganglionic. But it is important to observe that this division destroys not the unity of the soul, since in thought, feeling and desire are involved, and in every degree of emotion, thought and desire are included, and in desire, emotion is blended with thought. Willing and feeling are essential to intellect; and either the one or the other predominates, according as the soul manifests itself in its different bodily relations. This division of manifestation is a practical truth, that demands to be borne in mind in our endeavors at self-cultivation; for all defects in education are traceable to mismanagement, both of the body and the mind, in one or all of these divisions; and it is in the relation which these divis