The second objection, that those who study these sciences are not more healthy and happy, as organised beings, than those who neglect them admits also of an easy answer. Parts of these sciences are taught to a few individuals, whose main design in studying them is to apply them as means of acquiring wealth and fame; but they have nowhere been taught as connected parts of a great system of natural arrangements, fraught with the highest influences on human enjoyment; and in no instance have the intellect and sentiments been systematically directed to the natural laws, as the grand fountains of happiness and misery to the race, and trained to observe and obey them as the Creator's institutions.

A third organic law, is, that all our functions shall be duly exercised; and is this law observed by mankind? Many persons are able, from experience, to attest the severity of the punishment that follows from neglecting to exercise the nervous and muscular systems, in the lassitude, indigestion, irritability, debility, and general uneasiness that attend a sedentary and inactive life. But the penalties that attach to neglect of exercising the brain are much less known, and therefore, I shall notice them more at length. How often have we heard the question asked, What is the use of education? The answer might be illustrated by explaining to the inquirer the nature and objects of the various organs of the body, such as the limbs, lungs, eyes, and then asking him if he could perceive any advantage to a being so constituted, in obtaining access to earth, air, and light. He would, at once, declare, that they were obviously of the very highest utility to him, for they were the only conceivable objects, by means of which these organs could obtain scope for action, which action we suppose him to know to be pleasure. To those, then, who know the constitution of the intellectual and moral powers of man, I need only say, that the objects introduced to the mind by education, bear the same relation to them that the physical elements of nature bear to the nerves and muscles; they afford them scope for action, and yield them delight. The meaning which is commonly attached to the word use in such cases, is how much money, influence, or consideration, will education bring; these being the only objects of strong desire with which uncultivated minds are acquainted; and they do not perceive in what way education can greatly gratify such propensities. But the moment the mind is opened to the perception of its own constitution and to the natural laws, the great advantage of moral and intellectual cultivation, as a means of exercising the faculties, and of directing the conduct in obedience to these laws, becomes apparent.

'But there is an additional benefit arising from healthy activ ity of brain, which is little known. The brain is the fountain of

nervous energy to the whole body, and different modifications of that energy appear to take place, according to the mode in which the faculties and organs are affected. For example, when misfortune and disgrace impend over us, the organs of Cautiousness, Self-esteem, Love of Approbation, &c. are painfully excited; and then they transmit an impaired or a positively noxious nervous influence to the heart, stomach, intestines, and thence to the rest of the body; the pulse becomes feeble and irregular, digestion is deranged, and the whole corporeal frame wastes. When, on the other hand, the cerebral organs are agreeably affected, a benign and vivifying nervous influence pervades the frame, and all the functions of the body are performed with more pleasure and completeness. Now, it is a law, that the quantum of nervous energy increases with the number of cerebral organs roused to activity. In the retreat of the French from Moscow, for example, when no enemy was near, the soldiers became depressed in courage, and enfeebled in body, they nearly sunk to the earth through exhaustion and cold; but no sooner did the fire of the Russian guns sound in their ears, or the gleam of their bayonets flash in their eyes, than new life seemed to pervade them. They wielded powerfully the arms, which a few moments before, they could scarcely carry or trail on the ground. No sooner, however, was the enemy repulsed, than their feebleness returned. The theory of this is, that the approach of the combat called into activity a variety of additional faculties; these sent new energy through every nerve, and while their vivacity was maintained by the external stimulus, they rendered the soldiers strong beyond their merely physical condition. Many persons have probably experienced the operation of the same principle. When sitting feeble and listless by the fire, we have heard of an accident having occurred to some beloved friend, who required our instantaneous aid, or an unexpected visitor has arrived, in whom our affections were bound up, in an instant our lassitude was gone, and we moved with an alertness and animation that seemed surprising to ourselves. The cause was the same; these events roused Ad. hesiveness, Benevolence, Love of Approbation, Intellect, and a variety of faculties, which were previously dormant, and their influence invigorated the limbs. Dr Sparmann, in his Voyage to the Cape, mentions, that "there was now again a great scarcity of meat in the wagon; for which reason my Hottentots began to grumble, and reminded me that we ought not to waste so much of our time in looking after insects and plants, but give a better look out after the game. At the same time, they pointed to a neighbouring dale overrun with wood, at the upper edge of which, a the distance of about a mile and a quarter from the spot where we then were, they had seen several buffaloes. Accordingly, we went thither; but though our fatigue was lessened by 66

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our Hottentots carrying our guns for us up a hill, yet we were quite out of breath, and overcome by the sun, before we got up to it. Yet, what even now appears to me a matter of wonder is, that as soon as we got a glimpse of the game, all this languor left us in an instant. In fact, we each of us strove to fire before the other, so that we seemed entirely to have lost sight of all prudence and caution."-" In the mean time, our temerity, which chiefly proceeded from hurry and ignorance, was considered by the Hottentots as a proof of spirit and intrepidity hardly to be equalled."

It is part of the same law, that the more agreeable the mental stimulus, the more benign is the nervous influence transmitted to the body.

'If we imagine a man or woman, who has received from nature a large and tolerably active brain, but who has not enjoyed the advantages of a scientific or extensive education, so as to feel an interest in moral and intellectual pursuits for their own sake, and who, from possessing wealth sufficient to remove the necessity for labor, is engaged in no profession, we shall find a perfect victim to infringement of the natural laws. The individual ignorant of these laws, will, in all probability, neglect nervous and muscular exercise, and suffer the miseries arising from impeded circulation and impaired digestion; in entire want of every object on which the energy of his brain might be expended, its stimulating influence on the body will be withheld, and the effects of muscular inactivity tenfold aggravated; all the functions will, in consequence, become enfeebled; lassitude, uneasiness, anxiety, and a thousand evils, will arise; and life, in short, will become a mere endurance of punishment for infringement of institutions, calculated, in themselves, to promote happiness and afford delight, when known and obeyed. This fate frequently overtakes uneducated females, whose early days have been occupied with business, or the cares of a family, but which occupations have ceased before old age had diminished corporeal vigour; it overtakes men also, who, uneducated, retire from active business in the prime of life. In some instances, these evils accumulate to such a degree that the brain itself gives way, its functions become deranged, and insanity is the result.

'It is worthy of remark, that the more elevated the objects of our study, the higher in the scale are the mental organs which are exercised, and the higher the organs the more pure and intense is the pleasure; and hence, a vivacious and regularly supported excitement of the moral sentiments and intellect, is, by the organic law, highly favorable to health and corporeal vigour. In the fact of a living animal being able to retain life in an oven that will bake dead flesh, we see an illustration of the organic law rising above the purely physical; and, in the circumstance

of the moral and intellectual organs transmitting the most favourable nervous influence to the whole bodily system, we have an example of the moral and intellectual law rising higher than the mere organic.

'No person after having his intellect and sentiments imbued with a perception of, and belief in, the natural laws, as now explained, can possibly desire idleness, as a source of pleasure; nor can he possibly regard muscular exertion and mental activity, when not carried to excess, as anything else than enjoyments kindly vouchsafed to him by the benevolence of the Creator. The notion that moderate labor and mental exertion are evils, can orginate only from ignorance, or from viewing the effects of over-exhaustion as the result of the natural law, and not as the punishment for infringement of it.

'If, then, we sedulously inquire, in each particular instance, into the cause of the sickness, pain, premature death, and general derangement of the corporeal frame of man, which we see around us, and endeavour to discover whether it has originated in obedience to the physical and organic laws, or sprung from infringement of them, we shall be able to form some estimate how far bodily suffering is justly attributable to imperfections of nature, and how far to our own ignorance and neglect of divine institutions.

The foregoing principles being of much practical importance, may, with propriety, be elucidated by a few cases of actual occurrence. Two or three centuries ago, various cities in Europe were depopulated by the plague, and, in particular, London was visited by an awful mortality from this cause, in the reign of Charles the Second. The people of that age attributed this Scourge to the inscrutable decrees of Providence, and some to the magnitude of the nation's moral iniquities. According to the views now presented, it must have arisen from infringement of the organic laws, and been intended to enforce stricter obedience to them in future. According to this view, there was nothing inscrutable in its causes or objects, which, when clearly analysed, appear to have had no direct reference to the moral condition of the people: I say direct reference to the moral condition of the people, because it would be easy to show, that the physical, organic, and all the other natural laws, are connected indirectly, and constituted in harmony, with the moral law; and that infringement of the one often leads to disobedience to another, and brings a double punishinent on the offender. But, in the mean time, I observe that the facts recorded in history exactly correspond with the theory now propounded. The streets of London were excessively narrow, the habits of the people dirty, and no adequate provision was made for removing the filth unavoidably produced by a dense population. The great fire in

that city, which happened soon after the pestilence, afforded an opportunity of remedying, in some degree, the narrowness of the streets; and habits of increasing cleanliness abated the filth; these changes brought the people into a closer obedience to the organic laws, and no plague has since returned. Again, till very lately, thousands of children died yearly of the smallpox, but, in our day, vaccine inoculation saves ninetynine out of a hundred, who, under the old system, would have died. The theory of its operation is not known, but we may rest assured, that it places the system more in accordance with the organic laws, than in the cases where death ensued. A gentleman, who died about ten years ago at an advanced period of life, told me, that, six miles west from Edinburgh, the country was so unhealthy in his youth, that every spring the farmers and their servants were seized with fever and ague, and required regularly to undergo bleeding, and a course of medicine, to prevent attacks, or restore them from their effects. At the time, these visitations were believed to be sent by Providence, and to be inherent in the constitution of things; after, however, said my informant, an improved system of agriculture and draining was established, and vast pools of stagnant water formerly left between the ridges of the field were removed, dunghills carried to a distance from the houses, and the houses themselves made more spacious and commodious, every symptom of ague and marsh-fever disappeared from the district, and it became highly salubrious. In other words, as soon as the gross infringement of the organic laws was abated by a more active exertion of the muscular and intellectual powers of man, the punishment ceased. In like manner, how many calamities occurred in coalpits, in consequence of infringement of a physical law, viz. by introducing lighted candles and lamps into places filled with hydrogen gas, that had emanated from seams of coal, and which exploded, scorched, and suffocated the men and animals within its reach, until Sir Humphrey Davy discovered that the Creator had established such a relation betwixt flame, wiregauze, and hydrogen gas, that by surrounding the flame with gauze, its power of exploding hydrogen was counteracted. By the simple application of a covering of wire-gauze, put over and around the flame, it is prevented from igniting gas beyond it, and colliers are now able to carry, with safety, lighted lamps into places highly impregnated with inflammable air. I have been informed, that the accidents from explosion, which still occasionally occur in coal mines, arise from neglecting to keep the lamps in perfect condition.

It is needless to multiply examples in support of the proposition, that the organized system of man, in itself, admits of a healthy existence from infancy to old age, provided its germ has been healthy, and its subsequent condition has been