bleness of
the human species, have felt strongly prompted to embrace the creed of
Helvetius, who affirms that the minds of men, as they are born into
the world, are in a state of equality, alike prepared for any kind
of discipline and instruction that may be afforded them, and that
it depends upon education only, in the largest sense of that word,
including every impression that may be made upon the mind, intentional
or accidental, from the hour of our birth, whether we shall be poets
or philosophers, dancers or singers, chemists or mathematicians,
astronomers or dissectors of the faculties of our common nature.

But this is not true. It has already appeared in the course of this
Essay, that the talent, or, more accurately speaking, the original
suitableness of the individual for the cultivation, of music or
painting, depends upon certain peculiarities that we bring into the
world with us. The same thing may be affirmed of the poet. As, in the
infinite variety of human beings, there are no two faces so alike that
they cannot be distinguished, nor even two leaves plucked from the same
tree, so there are varieties in the senses, the organs, and the internal
structure of the human species, however delicate, and to the touch of
the bystander evanescent, which give to each individual a predisposition
to rise to excellence in one particular art or attainment, rather than
in any other.

And this view of things, if well considered, is as favourable, nay, more
so, to the hypothesis of the successive improveableness of the human
species, as the creed of Helvetius. According to that philosopher, every
human creature that is born into the world, is capable of becoming,
or being made, the equal of Homer, Bacon or Newton, and as easily and
surely of the one as the other. This creed, if sincerely embraced, no
doubt affords a strong stimulus to both preceptor and pupil, since, if
true, it teaches us that any thing can be made of any thing, and that,
wherever there is mind, it is within the compass of possibility, not
only that that mind can be raised to a high pitch of excellence, but
even to a high pitch of that excellence, whatever it is, that we shall
prefer to all others, and most earnestly desire.

Still this creed will, after all, leave both preceptor and pupil in a
state of feeling considerably unsatisfactory. What it sets before us,
is too vast and indefinite. We shall be left long perhaps in a state of
balance as to what sp