lest individual may answer as
readily as the most profound scholar, and express its perfection in
the single word, Holiness. But what will be the reply in regard to the
Intellect? For what is a perfect Intellect? Is it the Dialectic, the
Speculative, or the Imaginative? Or, rather, would it not include them
all?

We proceed next to the Physical. What, then, constitutes its
Perfection? Here, it might seem, there can be no difficulty, and the
reply will probably be in naming all the excellent qualities in our
animal nature, such as strength, agility, fleetness, with every other
that can be thought of. The bare enumeration of these few qualities
may serve to show the nature of the task; yet a physically perfect
form requires them all; none must be omitted; it would else be
imperfect; nay, they must not only be there, but all be developed in
their highest degrees. We might here exclaim with Hamlet, though in a
very different sense,

"A combination and a form indeed!"

And yet there is no other way to express physical perfection. But
can it be so expressed? The reader must reply for himself. We will,
however, suppose it possible; still the task is incomplete without the
adjustment of these to the perfect Moral, in the highest known degrees
of its several elements. To those who can imagine _such_ a form
as shall be the sure exponent of _such_ a moral being,--and such
it must be, or it will be nothing,--we leave the task of constructing
this universal exemplar for multitudinous man. We may add, however,
one remark; that, supposing it possible thus to concentrate, and
with equal prominence, all the qualities of the species into one
individual, it can only be done by supplanting Providence, in other
words, by virtually overruling the great principle of subordination
so visibly impressed on all created life. For although, as we have
elswhere observed, there can be no sound mind (and the like may be
affirmed of the whole man), which is deficient in any one essential,
it does not therefore follow, that each of these essentials may not be
almost indefinitely differenced in the degrees of their developement
without impairing the human integrity. And such is the fact in actual
nature; nor does this in any wise affect the individual unity,--as
will be noticed hereafter.

We will now briefly examine the pretensions of what are called the
Generic Forms. And here we are met by another important characteristic
of the human being, n