They who have attentively observed the early years of children must be convinced that each and every one of them is born with a distinct and individual character. Two men of fifty, "stained with the variation of each soil," will differ from each other in manners and opinions more than two children of the same family: but two children of the same family will, in character, differ from each other as much as two men of fifty. Pascal suggests a doubt whether, as custom is called a second nature, nature itself may not be a former custom. This profound thought leads to the question whether human souls have existed previously to their imprisonment in this "body of our humiliation." That they have so existed I think extremely probable for many very cogent reasons: it is an opinion which I could defend, merely as an opinion, by many powerful arguments. I am contented "not to be wise beyond what is written." Yet it is written that, when the disciples asked our Lord, "Did this man sin or his parents, that he was born blind?" our Lord, without reproving the supposition that the man might have sinned before his birth, simply answered, "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents." Henry Kenelm manifested, as early as the natural character can be manifested, a proud, impetuous, obstinate, angry temper: that he wanted any thing was, with him, a reason why he should have it; that any other child was younger or weaker than himself, entitled him, as he thought, to domineer. He had also the good qualities usually opposed to these faults in the same character; he was generous, grateful, confiding, compassionate. As no one, in so short a life, ever more completely subdued than he did the faults of his natural temper, I record them for the sake of doing homage to that religion by the aid of which he was enabled to correct them.