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Untitled Article
long is slow in growth . All animals which reach an advanced age , are slow in coming to maturity . The oak , vigorous at the end of a century , was scarcely more than mature after it had been nourished by the showers of fifty springs , and stimulated by the sun of fifty summers . And you may be assured that , the brain which is to be good for any thing at forty , and which is to continue active with any valuable result from that period up to eighty , will appear no prodigy at four , or even at ten . In general there cannot be a surer preparation either for a short life , or for a common-place and feeble intellect through a life of ordinary duration , than an early genius / Adult age is reached by the female at twenty , and by the male at twenty four , and ripens into maturity in woman at thirty , and in man at thirty-eight . * * * Then the human being attains the age when his physical organization acquires its utmost perfection , and his mental faculties are in the highest vigour . And it is remarkable that , while this is the period in which he is capable of the noblest conceptions , the finest actions , the most intense enjoyment ; in which
he is the most capable of receiving" and of communicating happiness ; so this is the only term of human existence which is not fixed ; this is the only term to which no limit can be set ; which is extensible , and that indefinitely . Every day , or month , or year , that is added to the duration of human existence , is , in reality , added to this period , and to this only ; that is , to the best period of life . All the preceding aeras are fixed by a law , which it is not in our power to break , or to change , or even so much as to modify , except only in an exceedingly slight degree . At a given time , though not precisely at the same
time , in all places , and under all circumstances , infancy passes into childhood , childhood into boyhood , boyhood into adolescence , and adolescence into manhood . But the termination of the period of manhood and the succession of old age varies in every individual , and may vary by a number of years far greater than that which constitutes the longest of any of the preceding periods . * If we have succeeded in giving such an account of these lectures as may convey to our readers an exact conception of their subject , we shall have contributed to extend some portion of the pleasure and advantage they conferred upon those who heard them . The large attendance which continued to the last , and the increasing proportion of ladies , evinced the interest excited , and we are not singular in expressing the hope that the circulation is not the only function which will form the subject of illustration .
Dr . Southwood Smith has long been engaged in preparing for the press such an exposition of all the functions of the animal economy as will enable him to expose the popular errors that prevail relative to the management of health and sickness , and to unfold and enforce the truths which should occupy their place ; and those who have attended to the practical bearing of the lectures of which we have
now closed our account , will , we think , partake of the impatience with which we look for the appearance of this work . No class of subjects more forcibly presents to the mind the contrast between things as they are , and things as they might be , and will be—betweea the happiness for which the organization of man fits him , and the suffering to which he , is so continually a prey . Let bat the minds of
Untitled Article
206 Dr . Southwood Smith on the Animal Hconomy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 206, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/62/
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