STUDY XII. 405 



But Man has not fatisfied himfelf with admitting 

 intellectual beings to a fhare of his repaft, and, in 

 Come meafure, with inviting them to his table ; he 

 has found the means of elevating himfelf to their 

 rank, by the phyfical effecls of thofe very aliments. 

 It is Angularly remarkable, that feveral favage 

 Nations have been difcovered, who fcarcely pof- 

 feffed induftry fufficient to procure food for them- 

 felves ; but not one who had not invented the 

 means of getting drunk. Man is the only animal 

 who is fenfible to that pleafure. Other animals 

 are content to remain in their fphere. Man is 

 making perpetual efforts to get out of his. Intoxi- 

 cation elevates the mind. All religious feftivals 

 among Savages, and even among polimed Na- 

 tions, end in feafting, in which men drink till 

 reafon is gone : they begin, it is true, with fading, 

 but intoxication clofes the fcene. Man renounces 

 human reafon, that he may excite in himfelf 

 emotions that are divine. The effect of intoxica- 

 tion is to convey the foul into the bofom of fome 

 deity. You always hear topers celebrating, in their 

 fongs, Bacchus, Mars, Venus, or the God of Love. 

 It is farther very remarkable, that men do not 

 abandon themfelves to blafphemy till they arrive 

 at a (late of intoxication j for it is an inftinct as 

 ufual to the foul, to cleave to the Deity, when it 

 is in it's natural ftate, as to abjure Him when it is 

 corrupted by vice. 



Dd 3 Of 



