Thoughts on Man | Page 8

ordinary man, no otherwise perhaps distinguished
from the vilest of the ragged spectators, than by the accident of his
birth!
But what is of more importance in the temporary oblivion we are
enabled to throw over the refuse of the body, it is thus we arrive at the
majesty of man. That sublimity of conception which renders the poet,
and the man of great literary and original endowments "in apprehension

like a God," we could not have, if we were not privileged occasionally
to cast away the slough and exuviae of the body from incumbering and
dishonouring us, even as Ulysses passed over his threshold, stripped of
the rags that had obscured him, while Minerva enlarged his frame, and
gave loftiness to his stature, added a youthful beauty and grace to his
motions, and caused his eyes to flash with more than mortal fire. With
what disdain, when I have been rapt in the loftiest moods of mind, do I
look down upon my limbs, the house of clay that contains me, the gross
flesh and blood of which my frame is composed, and wonder at a
lodging, poorly fitted to entertain so divine a guest!
A still more important chapter in the history of the human mind has its
origin in these considerations. Hence it is that unenlightened man, in
almost all ages and countries, has been induced, independently of
divine revelation, to regard death, the most awful event to which we are
subject, as not being the termination of his existence. We see the body
of our friend become insensible, and remain without motion, or any
external indication of what we call life. We can shut it up in an
apartment, and visit it from day to day. If we had perseverance enough,
and could so far conquer the repugnance and humiliating feeling with
which the experiment would be attended, we might follow step by step
the process of decomposition and putrefaction, and observe by what
degrees the "dust returned unto earth as it was." But, in spite of this
demonstration of the senses, man still believes that there is something
in him that lives after death. The mind is so infinitely superior in
character to this case of flesh that incloses it, that he cannot persuade
himself that it and the body perish together.
There are two considerations, the force of which made man a religious
animal. The first is, his proneness to ascribe hostility or benevolent
intention to every thing of a memorable sort that occurs to him in the
order of nature. The second is that of which I have just treated, the
superior dignity of mind over body. This, we persuade ourselves, shall
subsist uninjured by the mutations of our corporeal frame, and
undestroyed by the wreck of the material universe.

ESSAY II. OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS.
{Greek - omitted} Thucydides, Lib.I, cap. 84.
SECTION I.

PRESUMED DEARTH OF INTELLECTUAL POWER.--SCHOOLS
FOR THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH CONSIDERED.--THE BOY
AND THE MAN COMPARED.
One of the earliest judgments that is usually made by those whose
attention is turned to the characters of men in the social state, is of the
great inequality with which the gifts of the understanding are
distributed among us.
Go into a miscellaneous society; sit down at table with ten or twelve
men; repair to a club where as many are assembled in an evening to
relax from the toils of the day--it is almost proverbial, that one or two
of these persons will perhaps be brilliant, and the rest "weary, stale, flat
and unprofitable."
Go into a numerous school--the case will be still more striking. I have
been present where two men of superior endowments endeavoured to
enter into a calculation on the subject; and they agreed that there was
not above one boy in a hundred, who would be found to possess a
penetrating understanding, and to be able to strike into a path of
intellect that was truly his own. How common is it to hear the master of
such a school say, "Aye, I am proud of that lad; I have been a
schoolmaster these thirty years, and have never had such another!"
The society above referred to, the dinner-party, or the club, was to a
considerable degree select, brought together by a certain supposed
congeniality between the individuals thus assembled. Were they taken
indiscriminately, as boys are when consigned to the care of a
schoolmaster, the proportion of the brilliant would not be a whit greater
than in the latter case.
A main criterion of the superiority of the schoolboy will be found in his
mode of answering a casual question proposed by the master. The
majority will be wholly at fault, will shew that they do not understand
the question, and will return an answer