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pains have been taken by the learned, in decyphering the human mind. The dawn of infancy, the meridian of manhood, and the sunset of advanced age, have respectively afforded suitable topics of ingenious or profound speculation. Yet the researches of the theorist, without an appeal to practice and experience, avail but little to direct our projects, or to console our disappointments. The decisions of philosophy have generally proved too severe, to conciliate a voluntary acquiescence; the language of its maxims has been too abstruse, to recommend itself to the general ear. When we take up the task of forming the tender B