COLORING, are given, TUNE, and these, aided by Constructiveness, Form, Locality, 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, CAUSALITY, exist, WIT, and these faculties, aided by Individuality, Form, Size, Weight, and others already enumerated, find ample gratification in Natural Philosophy, in Moral, Political and Intellectual Science, and their different branches. 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. (82) CHAPTER III. ON THE SOURCES OF HUMAN HAPPINESS, AND THE CON DITIONS 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, 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 perform their functions by successive stages and 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 func-. tion 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 know existence, and to become acquainted with external objects; while the Reflecting Faculties desire to know the dependences 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 workmanship, as an instrument, a machine of any kind, you wish to know how it is made; how it works; and what use it is of. 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, 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 same. ** 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 illustra * Objects, advantages, and Pleasures of Science, p. 1. tions 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 present constitution, two arrangements may be fancied as instituted for their gratification; 1st, Infusing into the intellectual powers at birth, intuitive knowledge of every object which they are fitted ever to comprehend; and, Directing every propensity and sentiment by an infallible instinct to its best mode and degree of gratification: Or, 2dly, Constituting the intellectual faculties only as capacities for gaining knowledge by exercise and application, and surrounding them with objects bearing such relations towards them, that, when observed and attended to, they shall afford them high gratification; and, when unobserved and neglected, they shall occasion them uneasiness and pain: And giving to each propensity and sentiment a wide field of action, comprehending both use and abuse, and leaving the intellect to direct each to its proper objects, and to regulate its degrees of indulgence. And the question occurs, Which of these modes would be most conducive to enjoyment? The general opinion will be in favor of the first; but the second. appears to me to be preferable. If the first meal we had eaten had for ever prevented the recurrence of hunger, it is obvious that all the pleasures of satisfying a healthy appetite would then have been at an end; so that this apparent bounty would have greatly abridged our enjoyment. In like manner, if, our faculties being constituted as at present, intuitive directions had been impressed on the propensities and sentiments, and intuitive knowledge had been communicated to the understanding, so that, when an hour old, we should have been morally, as capable of wise and virtuous conduct, and intellectually, as thoroughly acquainted with every object, quality, and relation, as we could ever become, all provision for the sustained activity of many of our faculties |