late years, chiefly by writers of the American school, to claim for the female sex what they are pleased to term equality with men. They would endeavour to enhance the importance of woman in the social scale by dragging her from the peaceful shade of homethe sphere assigned her by her Maker's fiat-out in the glaring sunlight, amid the toil, the tumult, the contending passions, the clashing spirits of men. They would force her, spite of her natural constitution, into the arena of contest,-of social, political, and literary strife; preventing and destroying her natural instincts and destiny; totally ignoring the indisputable fact, proven by pyschological truth and the teaching of ages-that there is a sex of mind as well as person. They would present to us-instead of the natural state of women, the choicest creations of the Divine goodness-distorted images, deformed things, mental hermaphrodites, partaking of the semblances of each sex; without the uses or the graces of either. Such doctrines will not, I apprehend, ever be widely diffused in England. The clear-sighted and sensible of our countrywomen will always be ready to admit the truth so beautifully expressed by Milton "O thou, for whom And from whom I was formed; flesh of thy flesh; And head! GOD is thy law, thou mine: to know no more And again he tells us :— "For nothing lovelier can be found In woman, than to study household good; And good works in her husband to promote." It must appear evident to an unprejudiced mind, that woman was no more intended for the rough mental work of the world, than she is fitted for its physical labour. Her perfection is best displayed in quiet intellectual occupations, and in care and unquesti nally posse zo ́re acuteness fsation, of apprehension, tion: quicker insight into human character: 1. me tenderness, affection, and compassion; more of all that is en learing and capable of soothing human woes. They are mere credulous, more generous, more constant in love, and more devoted than men. It has been well sung "A thousand acts in every age will prove, The diversities of mankind presented by division to racon, will next very briefly engage our atten tion. These are now generally taken by ethnologists as five in number;-the Ethiopian, the American, the Mongolian, the Caucasian, and the Malay. These present remarkable differences in mental endowments, as well as in physical characteristics. The Ethiopian or Negro, physically known by the black skin, protruding lips, and woolly hair, is essentially of the sanguine temperament; his mental attribute is conspicuous sensuality. The American Redman is decidedly of the bilious temperament, and, tho' highly imaginative, is gloomy in disposition, and of defective reasoning powers. The Bushmen of Caffraria (a sub-division of these) are generally considered to represent the lowest extremity of the scale of humanity. The Mongol, or Asiatic, comes next in the scale of intellectual power; he is known by the olive skin and black hair; he seems a mixture of the nervous and phlegmatic temperaments, violent and impetuous when excited he has yet a strong and permanent disposition to apathy, indolence, and luxury. The white Caucasian race, besides presenting the most attractive outward form, is pre-eminent in all those mental particulars which distinguish man from the brutes. The intellectual faculties of its individuals are susceptible of the highest cultivation. Philosophy and the fine arts flourish in it, as in their proper soil. Individual peculiarities, called idiosyncrasies, do not merit much consideration. They are chiefly physical, and more interesting to the physician than the general observer. The different periods of human life, however, have a powerful influence in modifying the relations of the mind and body. In childhood, the mental as well as physical elements, still engaged in self-formation, sensitive to every external influence, are lively, but weak in the re-action. In adult age, the re-action preserves a beautiful equilibrium, with equal vigour and permanency. In old age the energy declines, and only the early pro found impressions abide, and act with calm thought in the now passive mind. This mental decay slowly progresses, like the lowering of a curtain over a stage scene, until the evening twilight descends upon us, and we fall into the "sere and yellow leaf." The rapid association of ideas is no longer manifested. The brilliant repartee, the splendid imagery, the poetic fancy which captivated, and the rapid glowing eloquence which enchanted, are no longer at our command, to exercise a magic spell over our listeners. The functions of the brain are consciousness (sensation), volition, and thought. Sleep is an inactive state of that organ, during which its functions are partly suspended. The faculties of the brain, become wearied by their exertions in the day, and rest is necessary to recruit them during the night by means of sleep. It may thus be defined as a repose of the proper instruments of thought, by which not only these, but the powers of the body also, are refreshed. Lichtenburg truly says, "The master-piece of creation must for a time become a plant, in order to be enabled to represent for a few consecutive hours, this same master-piece of creation." How eloquently the incomparable Shakspere has described sleep :— "Sleep knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, Nor second the exquisite apostrophe of Young :- There is, during sleep, a suspended communion of the mind with the external world, and a continuance of vegetative life. If sleep be perfect and profound (sopor), the whole of the functions of the brain are suspended, and there is no longer sensation, movement, will, or thought: but this is perhaps never the case during health. In ordinary sleep, as a beneficent safeguard, the mind remains partly awake to sensations. Thus, a sleeping person will draw away a limb if tickled or irritated; turn aside the head from disagreeable and pungent vapours applied to the nostrils, &c. The power of habit over sleep is very striking. Almost any one may acquire the habit of dividing his sleep, so as to take less at night, and a portion by day. Some become accustomed to have their rest broken at short intervals; and acquire the habit of waking at the least noise. Some, like Cæsar and Napoleon, can sleep at will, and wake at certain times. In the latter case, the mind unconsciously exerts its influence. After excessive fatigue, the desire of sleep becomes imperious and invincible. Thus, some of the Russian artillerymen were found asleep at their guns, amid the hideous din and sanguinary horrors of the siege of the Redan. Sleep, where either too brief or too prolonged, is highly detrimental both to mind and body; slowly, but surely, impairing their functions. During sleep, false impressions on the senses are of frequent occurrence (subjective), which have the air of reality, from not being corrected, as in the waking state, by the judgment. The ideas thus produced in the mind associate loosely with each other. This is dreaming. Dreaming appears nothing more than the occupation of the mind in sleep, with the pictorial world of fancy uncontrolled. That we never sleep without dreaming, is, I think, highly probable; not so much from reasoning on the unceasing presence and activity of the mind, as from the fact that whenever we are awakened we are conscious of an image just vanishing; and that we always fall asleep with dreams which we afterwards forget. As the organs of perception are, in sleep, not dead but dormant, external impressions, when strong enough to interrupt the internal play of the fancy, but not strong enough to dispel sleep, penetrate obscurely and slowly to the sensorium: the mind then lightly interweaves |