Materialism brought to the test of reason : and refuted by a consideration of the structure of the body and the faculties of the mind / by the Rev. Richard Hart.

  • Hart, Richard, -1846.
Date:
1835
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Materialism brought to the test of reason : and refuted by a consideration of the structure of the body and the faculties of the mind / by the Rev. Richard Hart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    means so common as Mr. Lawrence would have us to believe; and indeed, were I to judge by my own experience of aged persons, which, from the time of my ordination, has been sufficiently extensive, I should have no hesitation in saying that it is of very rare occurrence, having scarcely met with a single instance of it among several scores of old people whom I have known. 4thly. How many arrive at threescore years and ten, the ordinary limit of human existence, not merely with an unclouded judgment, but a memory richly stored with anecdotes of the past. That the judgment becomes perfect by age, according to Job,* * * § is a universally acknowledged fact.f But even those faculties which seem to require a greater degree of mental activity than old persons might have been thought capable of, are nevertheless sometimes called into exercise. Instances,” says Dugald Stuart, have frequently occurred of individuals in whom the power of imagination has, at an advanced period of life, been found susceptible of culture in a wonderful degree.”J Cicero§ mentions many instances of celebrated men, who in old age continued the pursuit of literature, viz. Sopho- cles, Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, Stesichorus, Isocrates, Gorgias, Pythagoras, Democritus, Xenocrates, Zeno, Cle- anthes, and Diogenes the Stoic; after which he thus proceeds: Num igitur hos coegit in suis studiis obmu- tescere senectus ? annon in omnibus iis studiorum agitatio vitse aequalis fuit? manent ingenia senibus, modo permaneat studium et industria.” Cato the censor, in his old age applied himself to the study of the Greek language ; and Dr. Johnson, at the age of seventy-one, gave a similar proof of the vigour of his mind by learning Dutch. || At the age of seventy-four this illustrious scholar said, “ I have this year read all Virgil through ; I read a book of the JEneid every night, so it was done in twelve nights. The Georgies did not give me so much pleasure: the Eclogues I have almost all by heart.”H But to return to the subject more immediately under consideration. We have every reason to believe, that in * Chap, XX. 7. f See Majendie’s Pliysiology, p. 118; and Reece’s Encyclopedia, vol.xxii. Art. Man. X Stuart on the Cultivation of Intellectual Habits. § Cato Major, sive De Senectute, cap.vii. ]| Boswell’s Johnson, edit. Croker, vol. iv. p. 353. Ibid. vol. V. p. 100.