f attention in minds of the highest
order, by a wise law of our constitution, is limited; and if it be
attempted to continue the exertion beyond the natural power, the effort
is infructuous. As straining the muscles produces fatigue, stiffness,
and tremor;--as ocula spectra intrude on the forced and protracted
attention of the visual organs,--so confusion ensues, when thought is
racked and goaded to exhaustion.

As the staple of the human intellect is vastly superior to that of
animals, so we find among our own species a considerable range of
capacity; but however we may estimate mental excellence, it should be
recollected, that its possession has seldom contributed to the happiness
of the individual; so that experience would lead us to prefer the sober
medium, which is included by a parenthesis, between the extremes of
genius and dulness, and which appears to be the unenvied lot of the mass
of society. The two great distinctions which mark the intellects of our
species, seem to consist in the difference of character, which is
established by those who excel in the exercise of their perceptions and
consequent recollection, and those who cultivate and discipline the
energies of thought. The former are distinguished by a vigorous
activity, a penetrating and unwearied observation; their curiosity
seems rather to be attracted by the object itself than directed by the
mind. This incessant occupation and restless inquiry furnishes the
memory with an abundant vocabulary: they recollect each object they have
seen, and can retrace every path they have trodden; the ear greedily
imbibes the conversations to which they are anxiously disposed to
listen; that which they read, they verbally retain; they excel in
quickness of perception and promptitude of memory, and appear to have
every thing by heart; they are "the gay motes that people the sun-beams"
of the intellectual world:--thus we find them, as inclination may sway,
accurate chronologists, biographers pregnant with anecdote, expert
nomenclators, botanists, topographers, practical linguists, and
bibliographers; in short, the opulent possessors of whatever perception
can detect, and memory preserve. The other order of men, (and they are
comparatively few,) are the creatures of reflection:--with them the
senses are little on the alert; they do not fatigue the wing by
excursions through the field of nature; but that which the recollection
retains becomes the subject of mental examin