I should abuse it, is just as rational as it would be to shut me up in prison, lest, by going at large, I should be led into mischief.

I like better to be a man than a brute; and my preference is just. A man is capable of giving more and enjoying more. By parity of reason I had rather be a man with talent, than a man without. I shall be so much more a man, and less a brute. If it lie in my own choice, I shall undoubtedly say, Give me at least the chance of doing uncommon good, and enjoying pleasures uncommonly various and exquisite.

The affairs of man in society are not of so simple a texture, that they require only common talents to guide them. Tyranny grows up by a kind of necessity of nature; oppression discovers itself; poverty, fraud, violence, murder, and a thousand evils, follow in the rear. These cannot be extirpated without great discernment and great energics. Men of genius must rise up, to shew their brethren that these evils, though familiar, are not therefore the less dreadful to analyse the machine of human society, to demonstrate how the parts are connected together, to explain the immense chain of events and consequences, to point out the defects and the remedy. It is thus only that important reforms can be produced. Without talents, despotism would be endless, and public misery incessant. Hence it follows, that

he who is a friend to general happiness, will neglect no chance of producing, in his pupil or his child, one of the long-looked-for saviours of the

human race.

ESSAY III.

OF THE SOURCES OF GENIUS.

It is a question which has but lately entered into philosophical disquisition, whether genius be born with a man, or may be subsequently infused. Hitherto it was considered as a proposition too obvious for controversy, that it was born and could not be infused. This is however by no means obvious.

That some differences are born with children, cannot reasonably be denied. But to what do these differences amount? Look at a new-born infant. How unformed and plastic is his body; how simple the features of his mind !{

The features of the mind depend upon perceptions, sensations, pleasure, and pain. But the perceptions, the pleasures, and pains of a child previous to his birth, must make a very insignificant catalogue. If his habits at a subsequent period can be changed and corrected by opposite impres

sions, it is not probable that the habits generated previous to birth can be inaccessible to alteration.

a

If therefore there be any essential and decisive difference in children at the period of birth, it must consist in the structure of their bodies, not in the effects already produced upon their minds. The senses, or sensibility, of one body may be radically more acute than those of another. We do not find however that genius is inseparably connected with any particular structure of the organs of sense. The man of genius is not unfrequently deficient in one or more of these organs; and very ordinary man may be perfect in them all. Genius however may be connected with a certain state of nervous sensibility originally existing in the frame. Yet the analogy from the external organs is rather unfavourable to this supposition. Dissect a man of genius, and you cannot point out those differences in his structure which constitute him such; still less can you point out original and immutable differences. The whole therefore seems to be a gratuitous assumption.

Genius appears to signify little more, in the first instance, than a spirit of prying observation and incessant curiosity. But it is reasonable to suppose that these qualities are capable of being generated. Incidents of a certain sort in early infancy will produce them; nay, may create them in a great degree, even at a more advanced period.

If nothing occur to excite the mind, it will become torpid; if it be frequently and strongly excited, unless in a manner that, while it excites, engenders aversion to effort, it will become active, mobile, and turbulent. Hence it follows, that an adequate cause for the phenomenon of genius may be found, in the incidents that occur to us subsequent to birth. Genius, it should seem, may be produced after this method; have we any sufficient reason to doubt of its being always thus produced?

All the events of the physical and intellectual world happen in a train, take place in a certain order. The voluntary actions of men are as the motives which instigate them. Give me all the motives that have excited another man, and all the external advantages he has had to boast, and I shall arrive at an excellence not inferior to his. This view of the nature of the human mind, is of the utmost importance in the science of education. According to the notions formerly received, education was a lottery. The case would be parallel, if, when we went into battle in defence of our liberties and possessions, ninety-nine in a hundred of the enemy were musketproof.

It would be an instructive speculation to enquire, under what circumstances genius is generated, and whether, and under what circumstances, it may be extinguished..

It should seem that the first indications of genius ordinarily disclose themselves at least as early, as at the age of five years. As far therefore as genius is susceptible of being produced by education, the production of it requires a very early care.

In infancy the mind is peculiarly ductile. We bring into the world with us nothing that deserves the name of habit; are neither virtuous nor vicious, active nor idle, inattentive nor curious. The infant comes into our hands a subject capable of certain impressions, and of being led on to a certain degree of improvement. His mind is like his body. What at first was cartilage, gradually becomes bone. Just so the mind acquires its solidity; and what might originally have been bent in a thousand directions, becomes stiff, unmanageable, and unimpressible.

This change however takes place by degrees, and probably is never complete. The mind is probably never absolutely incapable of any impressions and habits we might desire to produce. The production grows more and more difficult, till the effecting it becomes a task too great for human strength, and exceeds perhaps the powers and contrivance of the wisest man that ever existed. These remarks may contribute to explain the case of genius breaking out, at a late period, in an unpromising subject. If genius be nothing