abfurd, or lefs likely, than the event I have been accustomed to witness.

This is well known to those who are acquaint ed with the latest speculations and discoveries of philofophers. It may be familiarly illuftrated to the unlearned reader by remarking, that the process of generation, in confequence of which men and horses are born, has obviously no more perceivable correspondence with that event, than it would have, for me to pull the trigger of a gun.

pre

It was probably this falfe confidence and fumption among philofophers, that led them indifcriminately to reject the doctrine of inftinct among the animal tribes. There is a uniformity in fome of the spontaneous actions of animals, and a promptitude in others, which nothing that has yet been obferved in the preceding circumftances would have taught us to expect. It is this propofition, that the term instinct, accurately confidered, is calculated to exprefs. Inftinct is a general name for that fpecies of actions in the animal world, that does not fall under any series of intellectual proceffes with which we are acquainted..

Innumerable events are in like manner daily taking place in the univerfe, that do not fall under any of those rules of fucceffion that human fcience has yet delineated.

The world, instead of being, as the vanity of fome men has taught them to affert, a labyrinth of which they hold the clue, is in reality full of enigmas which no penetration of man has hitherto been able to folve.

The principle above mentioned, which affirms that we are never acquainted with any fecret virtue by means of which two events are bound to each other, is calculated to impress upon us a becoming humility in this respect.

It teaches us that we ought not to be furprised, when we fee one event regularly fucceeding another, where we fufpected leaft of what is apprehended by the vulgar as a link of connection between them. If our eyes were open, and our prejudices difiniffed, we thould perpetually advert to an experience of this fort.

That the accidents of body and mind fhould regularly defcend from father to fon, is a thing that daily occurs, yet is little in correspondence with the fyftems of our philofophers.

How finall a fhare, accurately speaking, has the father in the production of the fon? How many particles is it poffible fhould proceed from him, and constitute a part of the body of the child defcended from him? Yet how many circumftances they poffefs in common?

It has fometimes been fuppofed that the refemblance is produced by the intercourse which

takes

takes place between them after their birth. But this is an opinion which the facts by no means authorise us to entertain.

The first thing which may be mentioned as descending from father to fon is his complexion; fair, if a European; fwarthy or black, if a negro. Next, the fon frequently inherits a strong refemblance to his father's diftinguishing features. He inherits difeafes. He often refembles him in ftature. Persons of the fame family are frequently found to live to about the fame age. Laftly, there is often a ftriking fimilarity in their temper and difpofition.

It is eafy to perceive how thefe obfervations will apply to the queftion of genius. If fo many other things be heritable, why may not talents be fo alfo? They have a connection with many of the particulars above enumerated; and efpecially there is a very intimate relation between a man's disposition and his portion of underftanding. Again; whatever is heritable, a man muft bring into the world with him, either actually, or in the feminal germ from which it is afterwards to be unfolded. Putting therefore the notion of inheritance out of the question, it fhould feem that complexion, features, difeafes, ftature, age and temper, may be, and frequently are, born with a man. Why may not then his talents in the fanie fenfe be born with him?

Is this argument decifive against the generability of talents in the human subject, after the period of birth?

It is the madnefs of philofophy only, that would undertake to account for every thing, and to trace out the process by which every event in the world is generated. But let us beware of falling into the oppofite extreme. It will often happen that events, which at first fight appear leaft to affociate with that regularity and that precife fyftem to which we are accustomed, will be found upon a minuter and more patient infpection really to belong to it. It is the madnefs of philofophy to circumfcribe the universe within the bounds of our narrow fyftem; it is the madness of ignorance to fuppofe that every thing is new, and of a fpecies totally diffimilar from what we have already obferved.

That a man brings a certain character into the world with him, is a point that must readily be conceded. The mistake is to fuppofe that he brings an immutable character.

Genius is wifdom; the poffeffing a great store of ideas, together with a facility in calling them up, and a peculiar difcernment in their felection or rejection. In what fenfe can a new-born child be efteemed wife?

He may have a certain predifpofition for wifdom. But it can fcarcely be doubted that

every child, not peculiarly defective in his make, is fufceptible of the communication of wisdom, and confequently, if the above definition be juft, of genius.

The character of man is inceffantly changing.

One of the principal reasons why we are fo apt to impute the intellectual differences of men to fome caufe operating prior to their birth, is that we are fo little acquainted with the hiftory of the carly years of men of talents. Slight circumftances at first determined their propenfities to this or that purfuit. Thefe circumftances are irrecoverably forgotten, and we reafon upon a fuppofition as if they never exifted.

When the early life of a man of talents can be accurately traced, these circumstances gener ally present themfelves to our obfervation.

The private memoirs of Gibbon the hiftorian. have just been publifhed. In them we are able to trace with confiderable accuracy the progrefs of his mind. While he was at college, he became reconciled to the Roman Catholic faith. By this circumftance he incurred his father's displeasure, who banished him to an obfcure fituation in Switzerland, where he was obliged to live upon a scanty provision, and was far removed from all the cuftomary amufements

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