our faculties, in accordance with the physical, moral, and intellectual laws of nature, and to punish us only when we transgress these limits.

FIRMNESS is bestowed,-and the other faculties of the mind are its objects. It supports and maintains their activity, and gives determination to our purposes.

IMITATION is bestowed,—and every where man is surrounded by beings and objects whose actions and appearances it may benefit him to copy.

The next Class of Faculties is the Intellectual.

The provisions in external nature for the gratification of the Senses of Hearing, Seeing, Smelling, Taste, and Feeling, are so obvious, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon them.

INDIVIDUALITY and EVENTUALITY, or the powers of observing things that exist, and occurrences, are given,and all the truths which Natural Philosophy teaches, depend upon matter of fact, and that is learned by observation and experiment, and never could be discovered by reasoning at all.' Here, then, is ample scope for the exercise of these powers.

FORM, SIZE, WEIGHT, LOCALITY, ORDER, and NUMBER, are bestowed, and the sciences of Geometry, Arithmetic, Algebra, Geography, Navigation, Botany, Mineralogy, Zoology, Anatomy, and various others, are the fields of their exercise. The first three sciences are almost the entire products of these faculties; the others result chiefly from them, when applied on external objects.

COLORING, TIME, and TUNE are given,-and these, aided by Constructiveness, Form, Size, Ideality, and other faculties, find scope in Painting, Sculpture, Poetry, Music, and the other fine arts.

LANGUAGE is given,—and our faculties inspire us with lively emotions and ideas, which we desire to communicate by its means to other individuals.

COMPARISON and CAUSALITY exist, and these faculties, aided by Individuality, Form, Size, Weight, and others already enumerated, find ample gratification in Natural Philosophy, and in Moral, Political, and Intellectual Science. The general objects and affairs of life, together with our own feelings, conduct, and relations, are also the objects of the knowing and reflecting faculties, and afford them vast opportunities for exercise.

(88)

CHAPTER III.

ON THE SOURCES OF HUMAN HAPPINESS, AND THE CONDITIONS REQUISITE FOR MAINTAINING IT.

HAVING now given a rapid sketch of the constitution of man, and its relations to external objects, we are prepared to inquire into the sources of his happiness, and the conditions requisite for maintaining it.

The first and most obvious circumstance which attracts attention is, that all enjoyment must necessarily arise from activity of the various systems of which the human constitution is composed. The bones, muscles, nerves, and digestive and respiratory organs, furnish pleasing sensations, directly or indirectly, when exercised in conformity with their nature; and the external senses and internal faculties, when excited, supply the whole remaining perceptions and emotions, which, when combined, constitute life and rational existence. If these were habitually buried in sleep, or constitutionally inactive, life, to all purposes of enjoyment, might as well be extinct: Existence would be reduced to mere vegetation, without consciousness.

If, then, wisdom and benevolence have been employed in constituting man, we may expect the arrangements of creation, in regard to him, to be calculated, as a leading object, to excite his various powers, corporeal and mental, to activity. This, accordingly, appears to me to be the case; and the fact may be illustrated by a few examples. A certain portion of nervous and muscular energy is infused by nature into the human body every twenty-four hours, which it is delightful to expend. To provide for its expenditure, the stomach has been constituted so as to require regular supplies of food, which can be obtained only by nervous and muscular exertion; the body has been

created destitute of covering, yet standing in need of protection from the elements of heaven; and nature has been so constituted, that raiment can be easily provided by moderate exercise of the mental and corporeal powers. It

is delightful to repair exhausted nervous and muscular energy by wholesome aliment; and the digestive organs have been so constituted as to afford us frequent opportunities of enjoying the pleasures of eating. In these arrangements, the design of supporting the various systems of the body in activity, for the enjoyment of the individual, is abundantly obvious. A late writer justly remarks, that 'a person of feeble texture and indolent habits has the bone smooth, thin, and light; but nature, solicitous for our safety, and in a manner which we could not anticipate, combines with the powerful muscular frame a dense and perfect texture of bone, where every spine and tubercle is completely developed.' 'As the structure of the parts is originally perfected by the action of the vessels, the function or operation of the part is made the stimulus to those vessels. The cuticle on the hand wears away like a glove; but the pressure stimulates the living surface to force successive layers of skin under that which is wearing, or, as anatomists call it, desquamating; by which they mean, that the cuticle does not change at once, but comes off in squamæ or scales.'

Directing our attention to the Mind, we discover that Individuality, and the other Perceptive Faculties, desire, as their means of enjoyment, to become acquainted with external objects; while the Reflecting Faculties long to know the dependencies and relations of all objects and beings. 'There is something,' says an eloquent writer, 'positively agreeable to all men, to all at least whose nature is not most grovelling and base, in gaining knowledge for its own sake. When you see any thing for the first time, you at once derive some gratification from the sight being new; your attention is awakened, and you desire to know more about it. If it is a piece of workman

ship, as an instrument, a machine of any kind, you wish to know how it is made; how it works; and of what use it is. If it is an animal, you desire to know where it comes from; how it lives; what are its dispositions, and, generally, its nature and habits. This desire is felt, too, without at all considering that the machine or the animal may ever be of the least use to yourself practically; for, in all probability, you may never see them again. But you feel a curiosity to learn all about them, because they are new and unknown to you. You accordingly make inquiries; you feel a gratification in getting answers to your questions, that is in receiving information, and in knowing more,— in being better informed than you were before. If you ever happen again to see the same instrument or animal, you find it agreeable to recollect having seen it before, and to think that you know something about it. If you see another instrument or animal, in some respects like it, but differing in other particulars, you find it pleasing to compare them together, and to note in what they agree, and in what they differ. Now, all this kind of gratification is of a pure and disinterested nature, and has no reference to any of the common purposes of life; yet it is a pleasure— an enjoyment. You are nothing the richer for it; you do not gratify your palate, or any other bodily appetite; and yet it is so pleasing that you would give something out of your pocket to obtain it, and would forego some bodily enjoyment for its sake. The pleasure derived from science is exactly of the like nature, or, rather, it is the very * This is a correct and forcible exposition of the pleasures attending the active exercise of our intellectual faculties. In the Introduction to this work, pages 7 and 8, I have given several illustrations of the manner in which the external world is adapted to the mental faculties of man, and of the extent to which it is calculated to maintain them in activity, and I need not repeat them here. Supposing the human faculties to have received their

same.

* Objects, Advantages, and Pleasures of Science, p. 1.