were to be expected from
telescopes of extraordinary size and power. In many parts of knowledge,
man has been almost constantly making some progress; in other parts,
his efforts have been invariably baffled. The savage would not probably
be able to guess at the causes of this mighty difference. Our further
experience has given us some little insight into these causes, and has
therefore enabled us better to judge, if not of what we are to expect
in future, at least of what we are not to expect, which, though
negative, is a very useful piece of information.

As the necessity of sleep seems rather to depend upon the body than the
mind, it does not appear how the improvement of the mind can tend very
greatly to supersede this 'conspicuous infirmity'. A man who by great
excitements on his mind is able to pass two or three nights without
sleep, proportionably exhausts the vigour of his body, and this
diminution of health and strength will soon disturb the operations of
his understanding, so that by these great efforts he appears to have
made no real progress whatever in superseding the necessity of this
species of rest.

There is certainly a sufficiently marked difference in the various
characters of which we have some knowledge, relative to the energies of
their minds, their benevolent pursuits, etc., to enable us to judge
whether the operations of intellect have any decided effect in
prolonging the duration of human life. It is certain that no decided
effect of this kind has yet been observed. Though no attention of any
kind has ever produced such an effect as could be construed into the
smallest semblance of an approach towards immortality, yet of the two,
a certain attention to the body seems to have more effect in this
respect than an attention to the mind. The man who takes his temperate
meals and his bodily exercise, with scrupulous regularity, will
generally be found more healthy than the man who, very deeply engaged
in intellectual pursuits, often forgets for a time these bodily
cravings. The citizen who has retired, and whose ideas, perhaps,
scarcely soar above or extend beyond his little garden, puddling all
the morning about his borders of box, will, perhaps, live as long as
the philosopher whose range of intellect is the most extensive, and
whose views are the clearest of any of his contemporaries. It has been
positively observed by those who have attended to the bills of
mortality that women live longer upon