eternity; the other agitated, petty, vehement, and confused looking towards time.”  “Man,” says Sir William Hamilton, one of the greatest of true philosophers, “is not an organism:  he is an intelligence, served by organs.”  Says Whately:  “The heavens do indeed ‘declare the glory of God,’ and the human body is ’fearfully and wonderfully made;’ but man, considered, not merely as an organized being, but as a rational agent, and as a member of society, is perhaps the most wonderfully contrived, and to us the most interesting, specimen of divine wisdom that we have any knowledge of.”

MAN’S FAULTS.

So much in compliment of mankind.  Now this same marvelous creature, man, has a critical spirit.  He is endued with a quality of progression.  The motive power in this progression is dissatisfaction.  Let us listen to the sages when they drop eulogy and become out of conceit with themselves.

“MAN IS IMPROVABLE,”

says Horace Mann.  “Some think he is only a machine, and that the only difference between a man and a mill is, that one is carried by blood and the other by water.”  Says Pascal:  “What a chimera is man! what a singular phenomenon! what a chaos! what a scene of contrariety!  A judge of all things yet a feeble worm; the shrine of truth, yet a mass of doubt and uncertainty; at once the glory and the scorn of the universe.  If he boasts, I lower him; if he lowers himself I raise him; either way I contradict him, till he learns he is a monstrous, incomprehensible mystery.”  “Make yourself an honest man,” says Carlyle sarcastically, “and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.”  This remark sprang, probably, from a reading of

WHATELEY’S COMPARISON

of a rogue with a man of honor:  “Other things being equal, an honest man has this advantage over a knave, that he understands more of human nature:  for he knows that one honest man exists, and concludes that there must be more; and he also knows, if he is not a mere simpleton, that there are some who are knavish.  But the knave can seldom be brought to believe in the existence of an honest man.  The honest man may be deceived in particular persons, but the knave is sure to be deceived whenever he comes across an honest man who is not a mere fool.”  “Man is

TOO NEAR ALL KINDS OF BEASTS—­

a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture.”  This was the poet Cowley’s opinion.  “Of all the animals” scolds Boileau, “which fly in the air, walk on the ground, or swim in the sea, from Paris to Peru, from Japan to Rome, the most foolish animal, in my opinion, is man.”  People must be very bad, indeed, who get opinions as low as the two last quoted.  That rapacious vulture