for action; he joys to see and touch and hear, to partake the sun
and wind, to sit down and intently ponder on his astonishing
attributes and situation, to rise up and run, to perform the
strange and revolting round of physical functions. The sight of a
flower, the note of a bird, will often move him deeply; yet he
looks unconcerned on the impassable distances and portentous
bonfires of the universe. He comprehends, he designs, he tames
nature, rides the sea, ploughs, climbs the air in a balloon, makes
vast inquiries, begins interminable labours, joins himself into
federations and populous cities, spends his days to deliver the
ends of the earth or to benefit unborn posterity; and yet knows
himself for a piece of unsurpassed fragility and the creature of a
few days. His sight, which conducts him, which takes notice of the
farthest stars, which is miraculous in every way and a thing
defying explanation or belief, is yet lodged in a piece of jelly,
and can be extinguished with a touch. His heart, which all through
life so indomitably, so athletically labours, is but a capsule, and
may be stopped with a pin. His whole body, for all its savage
energies, its leaping and its winged desires, may yet be tamed and
conquered by a draught of air or a sprinkling of cold dew. What he
calls death, which is the seeming arrest of everything, and the
ruin and hateful transformation of the visible body, lies in wait
for him outwardly in a thousand accidents, and grows up in secret
diseases from within. He is still learning to be a man when his
faculties are already beginning to decline; he has not yet
understood himself or his position before he inevitably dies. And
yet this mad, chimerical creature can take no thought of his last
end, lives as though he were eternal, plunges with his vulnerable
body into the shock of war, and daily affronts death with
unconcern. He cannot take a step without pain or pleasure. His