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It is obvious that the infant acquires habits before it is 

 affected by a desire of novelty. Its first act is a scream. 

 Its collapsed lungs are suddenly inflated by the atmosphere 

 of the new world it has entered ; the blood is forced into an- 

 other system of vessels hitherto unoccupied, but now be- 

 come necessary to its different state of existence. From 

 warmth it plunges into an ocean of cold, and from darkness 

 into an atmosphere of light, its amazement, if capable of 

 such an affection, must be lost in the universal pain it en- 

 dures. No wonder its -first act should be a cry of misery; 

 or that on every recurrence of pain, it should repeat the ex- 

 pression pain had first taught it. This is our earliest habit ; 

 ■ixnd reason must in most of us have made some advance be- 

 fore we can overcome the propensity of lamenting by outcries 

 and tears, Avhatever anguish we suffer, whether corporeal or 

 mental. 



Life is a mingled draught from the beginning ; and if the 

 first habit of the infant flows from a source of pain, the 

 second is derived from a more pleasurable origin. The for- 

 jmer .owes >ts birth to the sense of feeling, the latter to that 

 of smeH. It is agreed that the child is attracted to the breast 

 by the fragrance of tlie milk. The organ of taste soon shares 

 in the delight; and we can well conceive, though we cannot 

 recollect, the first felicity we enjoyed, when two dormant 

 .senses were at once awakened by the complicated percep- 

 tion of so delicate an odour, and delicious a taste. Uii- 

 jtaught and unpractised, the infant draws its nourishment 



