The mind that is always active and unfatigued keeps the body out of mischief, keeps senses and nerves fully employed, renders stagnation impossible. The mathematician Sylvester claims for men of his own craft unusual longevity on this account. Here are his examples:

Among nine men 711 years, an average of 79. Excellent good, but not purely to the credit of mathematics, since Pythagoras and Plato and Leibnitz were considerably more than mere mathematicians. Let me however compare with them an equal number of poets and painters.

Among nine men 763 years, an average of nearly 85. Imagination beats calculation in this comparison. But of course Mr. Sylvester's mathematicians support my argument: and so do great lawyers like Lyndhurst and Lord St. Leonards (may he be a centenarian): and so do all men who occupy their minds, in whatsoever department of thought. Ideas are life. Their appearance is the sign of life, their generation is the source of life. The man without them is as dead as if he were carefully packed into a leaden coffin, and buried under one of those huge hideous monumental masses of stone which disfigure our churches and cemeteries.

I do not ask the reader whether he cares to investigate the secret of long life. If he does not if he is one of those luckless mortals who are discontented with this beautiful resourceful world, and fancy they would like something better-I have no concern with him. I relish this world, and mean to stay in it as long as I can; not from any fear of the future-which is unphilosophical, as I shall show hereafter-but because I hold that the soul, or self, can only be properly developed by thorough enjoyment of the present. The instant is ours. The past is past: quod vides perisse perditum ducas. The future will be ours in time; it is an infinite estate, to which we are infallible heirs, and which reaches us in rapid instalments; but to live on the expectation of it is to embarrass oneself with perpetual post-obits. Lose a moment never. Touch distinctly every priceless pearl of time as it passes through your fingers. Feel that it is a luxury to live.

These things can only be accomplished by forming a true theory of life, and by keeping the mind always awake and active. Both are possible to men and women of average powers. Persons of powers below the average were clearly designed for a servile existence, and it is to be regretted for their own sakes when the caprice of destiny makes emperors of them, or peers of the realm, or justices of the quorum. But at such freaks of fortune wise men smile.

CHAPTER II.

WHAT IS LIFE?

Nec morti esse locum.-Virgil.

WHAT IS LIFE? We can approximate to a solution of this problem only through another. What is man? My answer isA living indestructible spirit, inhabiting a material form which that spirit itself moulds and develops. Man possesses life so long as the atoms of his material form remain in their place; when they wear out, the spirit recommences its work, moulding for itself a new tenement. If you lived your life-if you are a stronger and purer spirit than when you entered on this planet your new form, wheresoever it may happen to be placed in the universe, will be nobler than