the wonders, the immensity, the grandeur, the beauty, and the harmonies of creation,-with all its sense of the good, the beautiful, and the true,-with all its apprehension of the immaterial,-with all its cognizance of a Creative, Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent Spirit; it surely need not be said, that this great, thinking, comprehending mind, cannot be material in its essence, or but a quality of the matter it is connected with. But mind is manifested through the medium of matter, and is so far dependent on the integrity and character of such material medium. The common dependence of all the varieties of vital force on the nervous organism, illustrates the observation, that the due use of such of the vital forces as are under the control of the individual in a greater or less degree, stimulates and strengthens all the vital forces, much in the same way that the due use of the muscles of the extremities strengthens the muscular system generally; whereas the undue use of any of the varieties of vital force, exhausts and debilitates, not only the kind of vital force so expended, but the vital forces generally of the system, as well those that minister to the higher endowments, as those which minister to the mere vegetative functions. Hence, the undue use of the mental faculties, may so far rob the organs of the vital force necessary to the normal performance of their functions, as to interfere with and impede such performance; and the studious man, or the anxious man, becomes a dyspeptic; or the over-tasked child becomes enfeebled, cachectic, and the subject of glandular disease,

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rickets, et id genus omne. Hence, the due use of certain of the varieties of vital force, may stimulate the vital forces generally, and promote the well-being and the healthiness of the whole economy; and social intercourse, intellectual excitement, or a moral stimulus, may remove dyspepsia, or rectify other states of organic indisposition; or the same result may follow from a long walk in the open air, or from music, or from dancing, &c.; or the digestion of easily assimilated aliment, or the due use of the motor organs, may re-act on the mental powers and manifestations, and be followed by greater energy of the intellect, greater powers of judgment, or greater capabilities of memory or imagination.

The infant is torpid during the greater part of the young existence; it sleeps, to restore and maintain the equilibrium of the vital force, to draw off as little as possible of such force from the great vegetative functions. By degrees, the instincts which first enabled it to swallow, taught it to desire and take food, to respire, &c., are aided by manifestations of the motor powers; and the infant tosses its limbs, not merely from organic sympathy, but by reason of the will. By degrees, the infant begins to use its eyes, to become sensible to variations of light, to discern objects, to become sensible to the impressions communicated through the sense of touch, to become cognizant of, and capable of appreciating different sounds. By degrees, the power of observing all around him, of noting the forms, colours, hardness or softness, temperature, &c., of surrounding objects,

becomes manifested; by degrees, the appetites and the passions, sufficiently distinctive in character from the instincts of earlier existence, enter on the scene; by degrees, the appreciation of right and wrong demonstrate the commencing development of the sentiments; and, eventually, memory, imagination, and judgment, severally afford indications of a further advance in the nervous organisation.

The Hygienic lessons to be learned from these physiological statements are of much importance. The infant, for a term that may differ somewhat in duration, according to the degree of congenital strength and development, is virtually the mere creature of a vegetative existence, with the addition of the needful instincts that lead it to desire food, that enable it to swallow, to respire, &c. The less that this condition is interfered with, and the less that the supervention of the next gradation in this curious series is hurried,-in the more delicate it might almost be said the more it can be retarded, -the stronger the probability of future health and vigour. To expose an infant to the influence of strong light, to surround it with bright colours, or with articles that present a variety of strong lights and shades,-to stimulate the ear with noises, or almost any loud sounds, even if they be of musical character,—to arouse the motor system prematurely, by such excitement as allowing the infant to sit up, or tossing it up and down, or swinging it about— must be wrong in the earlier weeks, or it may be even in the earlier months, of life. In the rearing of

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those who are especially feeble, and delicate, and imperfectly developed at birth, the nursery should be much darkened, all noise should be strictly forbidden, the conversation of the attendants should be in tones scarcely louder than whispers, and even the low singing of the lullaby may be for the time enterdicted; while the raising of the infant from the horizontal position, which is certainly not necessary for the taking off or putting on its clothes, if they are properly made, and which is not needful for the purpose of the ablutions, nor for the administration of the natural aliment, nor for that of artificial food, should be strictly forbidden.

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As life passes on, as the infant system becomes stronger, as the nervous organism becomes more and more developed, the same pains are to be taken to avoid the premature excitement of the opening faculties, to keep back, rather than accelerate, the dawnings of the successive grades of automatic, organic, sentient, perceptive, and reflective faculties. It is not only because the physical and sentient organisation of the ear may be incomplete and morbidly irritable, that loud noises should be forbidden in the nurseries; it is not only because the eye may be less tolerant of light, and its delicate tissue more easily irritated, injured, and inflamed, that a darkened nursery is to be advised; it is not only because the bones are soft and gelatinous, the muscles flaccid and feeble, the tissues highly vascular, the joints deficient in firmness, and intolerant of pressure, that the vertebræ should not be permitted to rest

VOL. II.

upon one another, nor the muscles of the back be called upon to aid in maintaining the infant in a sitting position, nor the use of the extremities to be encouraged; but it is that there is the further and equally important risk encountered, of an interference with the development of the nervous organism, and of abstracting from the probabilities of a vigorous constitution of this most important part of the system.

By degrees, the manifestation and development of motor power, of the sentient system, and of the perceptive faculties, are evidenced in the voluntary and uncontrollable movement of the extremities, and of the trunk of the body,-in the exploring and prying eye, in the apt and attentive ear; and the nursing should gradually follow such progressive development, and the infant be more and more tossed up and down in the arms of the nurse, be allowed to look from object to object in a less and less obscured light, be solaced by nursery minstrelsy, and permitted to sit up during a little and little longer time on the nurse's knee; but all these advances should follow the evident indications of nature's requirements, and never precede, and perhaps seldom go hand in hand with them.

By degrees, the gradually dawning faculties will show the sense of what is customary and what is unusual, will distinguish between the tones of approbation and those of disapproval; and the moral culture of the little being begins from that moment. Then, the unwise indulgence, the needless harshness,