a half of material in the course of a year, that in
this flux of matter there is not only a permanence of form, but, what is
of infinitely more importance, an unchangeableness in his intellectual
powers. It is not correct to say this; indeed, it is wholly untrue. The
intellectual principle passes forward in a career as clearly marked as
that in which the body runs. Even if we overlook the time antecedent to
birth, how complete is the imbecility of his early days! The light
shines upon his eyes, he sees not; sounds fall upon his ear, he hears
not. From these low beginnings we might describe the successive
re-enforcements through infancy, childhood, and youth to maturity. And
what is the result to which all this carries us? Is it not that, in the
philosophical contemplation of man, we are constrained to reject the
idea of personality, of individuality, and to adopt that of a cycle of
progress; to abandon all contemplation of his mere substantial form, and
consider his abstract relation? All organic forms, if compared together
and examined from one common point of view, are found to be constructed
upon an identical scheme. It is as in some mathematical expression
containing constants and variables; the actual result changes
accordingly as we assign successively different values to the variables,
yet in those different results, no matter how numerous they may be, the
original formula always exists. From such a universal conception of the
condition and career of man, we rise at once to the apprehension of his
relations to others like himself--that is to say, his relations as a
member of society. We perceive, in this light, that society must run a
course the counterpart of that we have traced for the individual, and
that the appearance of isolation presented by the individual is
altogether illusory. Each individual man drew his life from another, and
to another man he gives rise, losing, in point of fact, his aspect of
individuality when these his race connexions are considered. One epoch
in life is not all life. The mature individual cannot be disentangled
from the multitudinous forms through which he has passed; and,
considering the nature of his primitive conception and the issue of his
reproduction, man cannot be separated from his race.

By the aid of these views of the nature and relationship of man, we can
come to a decision respecting his possession of a criterion of truth. In
the earliest moments of his existence he c