we found ourselves confronted with an unexpected difficulty. There was no analysis of Human Nature which could be prescribed as a basis for our proposed course. The experiment of recommending several treatises, and leaving the students to make their own analysis, was not successful, and I was thus compelled to prepare an introduction to our study before we could prosecute it. Hence this treatise, the product of studies pursued as recreation for many years, but of composition completed in a few months. Having once undertaken to write at all, I have endeavored to prepare this Study in Human Nature, in a form so practical, so simple, and so broad, that it might be a help to every mother who desires to study the nature of her child, every teacher who wishes to study the nature of his pupil, every pastor who aims to study the character either of his parish, or of a single parishioner. All scholastic subtleties, all doubtful disputations between different schools, all technical terms, I have carefully avoided. My aim is not to expound a system of philosophy, but to incite the reader to a study of Human Nature, and to help him in pursuing it. Mental science has fallen under a popular ban. It is thought to be a hopeless plowing of a barren soil. But the sublimest work of God is man, and there can be no worthier object of devout study than him whom God has made after his own image; and surely no object about which we are more concerned to know, whether we regard our own welfare or the well-being of our fellow-men. To all who love their fellow-men, and desire to know and serve them better, this little attempt to aid them in that knowledge and service is dedicated by CORNWALL-ON HUDSON, N. Y. THE AUTHOR. A STUDY IN HUMAN NATURE. CHAPTER I. THE NECESSITY OF THE STUDY. Lord "KNOW thyself" was an ancient Greek apothegm. Beaconsfield, in his famous address before the University of Edinburgh, declared that the fundamental conditions of success in life were two-knowing one's self, and knowing the needs of one's age or epoch. But of all knowledge, selfknowledge is the rarest; perhaps, also, the most difficult to attain. It is only recently that physiology has become a study in our schools. Until within a few years all knowledge of the body was thought to be a specialty belonging only to the doctors. Even to-day mental science—the organism and operation of the mind-is not studied in our schools. This is left to the higher classes in our colleges, and studied there as an abstract, not as a practical, science. Every man ought to know his own nature; his bodily strength and weakness; his mental strength and weakness; his moral strength and weakness. A knowledge, concrete, not abstract, practical, not theoretical, of human nature, is essential to the best and truest success in life-to health, to development, to useful ness. I. No man can keep either mind or body in health unless he knows what his mind and body are. He cannot keep himself in order unless he knows how he is constituted. The body is a wonderfully delicate machine. It is placed in a world where there are many influences at work destructive of it. There is poison in food, in water, in air; there is death in the pot." There is evil in excess; there is evil in scant measure. Men suffer from too much air and from too little; from over-feeding and from under-feeding; from excessive sleep and from too little sleep; from too violent exercise and from too little exercise. We must know not only what, but also how much, our bodies need. The specialists aver that most men have a streak of insanity in them. A thoroughly sane mind is as rare as a thoroughly healthy body. To keep the mind well balanced, to preserve it in good order, to enable it to work clearly, quickly, efficiently, regularly, requires a knowledge of the mind and of the conditions of mental health. The ministers assure us that all men are diseased morally. Life abundantly bears out their assertion. No man is perfectly healthy, morally; for perfect health is a perfect balance of all the moral powers. Every faculty has its own disease. The conscience may become cruel-witness the Inquisition. Religion may become superstition-witness the history of all pagan and some forms of the Christian religion. Love may become sentiment-witness the story of many a child ruined by the false love of a doting mother. And observe that every man's body, mind, and spirit is distinct from every other man's. Its conditions of health are peculiar. What is one man's meat is another man's poison.\ One man needs cereals, another meat; one man needs to read more fiction, another needs to abandon it altogether. One man needs to cultivate his reverence, another his conscience, a third his sympathy. To produce, to cultivate, to maintain health of body, mind, and spirit, every man has need to know his own nature, the laws of his own being, the condition of his own health. 2. Self-knowledge is equally indispensable to growth, education, development. Some of the Hebrew scholars tell us that the familiar text in Proverbs about child-training should read: Train up a child in his own way, that is, according to the bent of his natural genius, and when he is old he will not |