yant temperament, as a rule, sit easy to the cares
and obligations of life. They are not much given to care and anxiety as
regards their own affairs, and it is not to be expected that they should
be more anxious about other people's. In point of fact, this is the
constitution of somewhat easy virtue: it is not distinguished by a
severe, rigid attention to the obligations and the punctualities of
life. We should not be justified in calling such persons selfish; still
less should we call them cold-hearted: their exuberance overflows upon
others in the form of heartiness, geniality, joviality, and even lavish
generosity. Still, they can seldom be got to look far before them; they
do not often assume the painfully circumspect attitude required in the
more arduous enterprises. They are not conscientious in trifles. They
cast off readily the burdensome parts of life. All which is in keeping
with our principle. To take on burdens and cares is to draw upon the
vital forces--to leave so much the less to cheerfulness and buoyant
spirits. The same corporeal framework cannot afford a lavish expenditure
in several different ways at one time. Fox had no long-sightedness, no
tendency to forecast evils, or to burden himself with possible
misfortunes. It is very doubtful if Palmerston could have borne the part
of Wellington in the Peninsula; his easy-going temperament would not
have submitted itself to all the anxieties and precautions of that vast
enterprise. But Palmerston was hale and buoyant, and the Prime Minister
of England at eighty: Wellington began to be infirm at sixty.

[LIMITATIONS OF THE MENTAL FORCES.]

To these three experimental proofs we may add the confirmation derived
from the grand doctrine named the Correlation, Conservation,
Persistence, or Limitation of Force, as applied to the human body and
the human mind. We cannot create force anywhere; we merely appropriate
existing force. The heat of our fires has been derived from the solar
fire. We cannot lift a weight in the hand without the combustion of a
certain amount of food; we cannot think a thought without a similar
demand; and the force that goes in one way is unavailable in any other
way. While we are expending ourselves largely in any single function--in
muscular exercise, in digestion, in thought and feeling, the remaining
functions must continue for the time in comparative abeyance. Now, the
maintenance of a high strain of elated feeling, unquestionably costs