the harpsichord is the result of the instrumental mechanism. The mind
shared the decrepitude of the body in extreme old age, and in the
full vigour of youth a sudden injury to the brain might forever destroy
the intellect of a Plato or a Shakspeare. But the third principle,--the
soul,--the something lodged within the body, which yet was to survive it?
Where was that soul hidden out of the ken of the anatomist? When
philosophers attempted to define it, were they not compelled to confound
its nature and its actions with those of the mind? Could they reduce it
to the mere moral sense, varying according to education, circumstances,
and physical constitution? But even the moral sense in the most virtuous
of men may be swept away by a fever. Such at the time I now speak of
were the views I held,--views certainly not original nor pleasing; but I
cherished them with as fond a tenacity as if they had been consolatory
truths of which I was the first discoverer. I was intolerant to those who
maintained opposite doctrines,--despised them as irrational, or disliked
them as insincere. Certainly if I had fulfilled the career which my
ambition predicted,--become the founder of a new school in pathology, and
summed up my theories in academical lectures,--I should have added
another authority, however feeble, to the sects which circumscribe the
interest of man to the life that has its close in his grave.

Possibly that which I have called my intellectual pride was more
nourished than I should have been willing to grant by the self-reliance
which an unusual degree of physical power is apt to bestow. Nature had
blessed me with the thews of an athlete. Among the hardy youths of the
Northern Athens I had been preeminently distinguished for feats of
activity and strength. My mental labours, and the anxiety which is
inseparable from the conscientious responsibilities of the medical
profession, kept my health below the par of keen enjoyment, but had in no
way diminished my rare muscular force. I walked through the crowd with