The instinct and imperfect reason of the noblest brutes,
are here in marked contrast to the mind of man. They reach the limit of
knowledge with the ripening of their physical frame; a limit which no
training, however protracted and ingenious, can overpass; which never
varies, except as a cord drawn round a center may vary, by being
enlarged on the one side and contracted on the other; and which prepares
them without the acquisition of a particle of superfluous intelligence
for their brute life as the servitors of man. While his mind, never
wholly stationary for a long period, has capacities for development that
seem to spurn a merely sensual life, and lift the spirit to a
companionship with angels; which, instead of resting satisfied with the
mere demands of the body, seeks to penetrate the deep springs of life,
discern the exquisite organism of an insect's wing, measure the stars,
and analyze the light that reveals them.
Possessing an intellect of so fine a nature, it is not to be questioned
that, according to our opportunities, it is incumbent on us to carry
forward its improvement from childhood to hoary age. A power like this,
of indefinite expansion, in directions surpassingly noble, among
subjects infinitely grand, has been conferred that it might be expanded,
and go on expanding in an eternal progression; that it might sweep far
beyond its present horizon and firmament, where the stars now shining
above us, shall become the jeweled pavement beneath us, while above
still roll other spheres of knowledge, destined in like manner to
descend below us as the trophies of our victorious progress.
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