from her too rapid revolutions; and no tendency to spontaneous combustion from excessive friction.

Though she act with the speed of lightning, there is no material manifestation, no friction, no noise. Though she outstrips the sunbeams in the race, her form shall cast no shadow as she passes, nor jostle a dew-drop from the morning flowers. All this she can do because she is a spirit. Were she of earth, she must needs move like earthly things, and like them, might perish at last; but spurning the dull tediousness of inert matter, she acts like a celestial being, and thus proclaims, both her title to and her fitness for an immortal state of existence.

CHAPTER XVII.

POWERS OF THE SOUL CONTINUED-CAPABILITIES OF IMPROVEMENT, AND VAST ACHIEVEMENTS.

CONTINUING our analysis of the powers and susceptibilities of the soul, let us now look at her capacity for improvement, as compared with the lower animals, and as in some measure attested by her achievements even during this brief and inauspicious life.

I. That reason and instinct are not identical, we shall not pause to argue at length. When we see the lower tribes endowed with instinct to select their food; swim if thrown into the water; hide upon the approach of danger, &c., from the day of birth,—to migrate with unerrring precision, both as to the time and the direction, and a thousand other things for which man has no corresponding instinct, it is obvious that the Creator gave instinct to be the guide of the lower animals, leaving man to be governed by the higher endowment of reason. Hence man has but a single instinct, and that is to draw his food from his mother's breast; and even that is supplanted by reason before six months have elapsed. On the other hand the birds of the air, the quadrupeds, the insect tribes, and even the fish of the sea, are all richly endowed

with various instincts, which continue through life, but have scarce a semblance of reason.

II. But though the endowment of instinct usually remains during the life of its possessor, there is no improvement. The beaver builds his dam and his house during the last year of his life, precisely as he did the first; and those of this generation precisely like those of a thousand generations past. So of the bee; she builds her honey-comb to-day, precisely as in the days of Samson or of David, three thousand years ago. And so on through all the animal tribes. There is no progress; no invention, no improvement upon the past, no building upon the acquisitions of preceding generations. Though some of them may live for a century, they reach their zenith of knowledge in a few short years, at longest, and can go no further.

A horse becomes accustomed to his stable ;-it takes fire, but it is impossible to remove him except by deception or force; and even when fairly out, if left free to follow his instincts he will rush back into the flames and perish. And yet he is one of the most sagacious of animals. But capable as he may be of improvement in minor things, probably a century of training would fail to give him reason enough not to rush into the jaws of certain death, merely because he has been in the habit of being fed and of resting in a building now wrapped in flames. Such is the quality of the "reason" which materialism insists upon according to the brute creation.

III. From these undeniable facts, look now at the progressive character of reason. Step by step and link by link, the soul moves onward and upward from

one principle to another, and from premises to remote conclusions, till she plants herself above the stars. So far as we know, there is no limit to her capacity for storing up knowledge. Failing bodily powers may arrest her progress and obscure her light for a time, but this argues nothing against continued vigor in the intermediate state nor when the soul shall come to dwell in her resurrection body. Even in this life, both the field of investigation and the capacity of improvement may be regarded as unlimited.

Were man to live coeval with the sun,

The patriarch pupil would be learning still,
Yet, dying, leave his lesson half unlearned.

With all the disabilities under which the mind of man exists in our present fallen state, the capability of endless progress in knowledge is as apparent as the ability to acquire knowledge at all. In this we discover the broad line of demarkation which distinguishes man from the beast that perishes.

IV. In further illustration of the capacity of man for acquiring knowledge, look at his actual achievements in the various fields of human research. Take the sciences, for example. Here is one man, who like Solomon, knew every plant, and shrub, and flower, and tree, from the cedar of Lebanon, to the hyssop upon the wall. 1 Kings iv. 33. He can tell you of the structure, and habits, and abode of each, whether in the valleys or on the hills, on the land or in the depths of the sea. Another makes geology his study, and can tell you the origin, and age, and peculiarities of every rock, and gem, and mineral, and fossil in all the earth. It is his delight to dwell amid "the chief things of the ancient moun

tains, and the precious things of the lasting hills.” Deut. xxxiii. 13. Another is equally familiar with the geography of every part of the globe, its continents and oceans, rivers and mountains, climate and productions. And so of optics and magnetism, pneumatics and chemistry, natural history and astronomy, mathematics and languages, mental philosophy and logic, rhetoric and history, physiology and medicine, law and theology, architecture, navigation, mechanics, invention, poetry, sculpture, and painting; and a thousand other minor departments of knowledge and skill which we cannot enumerate.

And how wonderful the elevation to which man has attained in each of these departments.

Earth's disembowel'd! measured are the skies!
Stars are detected in their deep recess !
Creation widens! Vanquish'd Nature yields!
Her secrets are extorted! Art prevails!
What monuments of genius, spirit, power!

The astronomer will predict a transit or an eclipse to a minute a thousand years to come, and tell you precisely where it will or will not be visible on the earth's surface, and its precise extent and duration. So familiar is he with the mechanism of the heavens, and with "the geometry of God." The chemist will separate the gold from the silver, though thoroughly fused and blended together; or detect the smallest quantity of arsenic, though scattered through the whole human body. The physiologist knows every bone, and muscle, and artery, and vein, and nerve, and gland, and organ, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, with their proper offices, and functions, and perhaps the symptoms of every