276 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION OF 



sensation and power, by which our enjoyments are made so 

 much greater. In making the desire of food, for example, 

 with us an indefinite mental manifestation, instead of the 

 definite one which it mainly is amongst the lower animals, the 

 Creator has given us a means of deriving far greater gratifica-. 

 tions from food (consistently with health) than the lower 

 animals generally appear to be capable of. He has also given 

 us reason to act as a guiding and controlling power over this 

 and other propensities, so that they may be prevented from 

 becoming causes of malady. We can see that excess is in- 

 jurious, and are thus prompted to moderation. We can see 

 that all the things which we feel inclined to take are not 

 healthful, and are thus exhorted to avoid what are pernicious. 

 We can also see that a cleanly skin and a constant supply of 

 pure air are necessary to the proper performance of some of the 

 most important of the organic functions, and thus are stimu- 

 lated to frequent ablution, and to a right ventilation of our 

 parlours and sleeping apartments. And so on with the other 

 causes of disease. Reason may not operate very powerfully 

 to these purposes in an early state of society, and prodigious 

 evils may therefore have been endured from diseases in past 

 ages ; but these are not necessarily to be endured always. As 

 civilization advances, reason acquires a greater ascendancy ; 

 the causes of the evils are seen and avoided ; and disease 

 shrinks into a comparatively narrow compass. The experience 

 of our own country places this in a striking light. In the 

 middle ages, when large towns had no police regulations, 

 society was at frequent intervals scourged by pestilence. The 

 third part of the people of Europe are said to have been carried 

 off by one epidemic. In London, in 1685, one in twenty- 

 three died annually, a proportion which has since sunk to one 

 in forty. The improvement of human life during the last two 

 ages is shown in a comparison of the Northampton tables of 

 mortality compiled by Dr. Price, with those prepared a few 

 years ago by Mr. Finlayson. Modern tables still show a pro- 

 digious mortality among the young in all civilized countries 

 evidently a result of some prevalent error in the usual modes 

 of rearing them. But to remedy this evil there is a sagacity 

 of the human mind, and the desire to adopt any reformed 

 plans which may be shown to be necessary. By a change in 

 the management of an orphan institution in London, during 

 the last fifty years, an immense reduction in the mortality 

 took place. We may of course hope to see measures devised 



