50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CAN'ADIAN INSTITUTE. 



was intended in the design of the creature by its Aiithor. For 

 example, our bodily organs of sense and movement are instruments 

 through use of which the mind exerts itself to accomplish its ends. 

 Imperfection or injury of an instrument will lower its utility ; and 

 consequently, if the body is faithfully to fulfil its functions, it must 

 be preserved from external injury and internal irregularity. But, 

 as man is empirically situated, his organism is not so nicely adjusted 

 to its environment as to be absolutely secure from harm. On the 

 contrary it is necessarily exposed to many harmful affections, and 

 even to much abuse of its own functions. 



From these injuries, pain and fatigue, by a provision that reveals 

 the wisdom of an all-wise Creator, are commissioned to protect and 

 warn us. This they do by reproof, and by attaching penalties to 

 continued or repeated indulgence ; and, while their voice is likely to 

 be heard, they cease not to exert it. But just as soon as their further 

 continuance would be in the necessity of the case useless, or itself 

 injurious, at that point they are destroyed or countei'acted by the 

 working of another provision of our nature equally beneficent with 

 the former. We necessai'ily meet with some hurtful agents at least. 

 No one can escape them. In such a case, if the result of habit, or 

 of repeated impi'ession, were to increase the organic sensitiveness in 

 the same way as it increases the powers of perception and the volun- 

 tary powers, then protection against necessary injuries would be to 

 us a dream. Through necessai-y exposure we would soon possess 

 such extraordinary capacities of suffering that every feeling would 

 be an agony, every offensive smell would become an intolerable 

 stench, every touch would sharpen into a sting, and every ray of 

 light would quicken into burning fire. Against such evil as this 

 habit comes to our aid as an angel of protection, abating our sensi- 

 bility to excessive heat and cold, and the painful effects of other 

 hurtful agents. This it does as nicely and as exactly as the exigency 

 could require, as accurately as if some beneficent and all-wise director 

 superintended the working out of results. "What we cannot avoid 

 we are enabled to endure, habit kindly throwing the protection of 

 its insensibility over our suffering sense. It is in the same way that 

 certain of those pains of emotion, unavoidable in the ordinary run of 

 life, ai'e restrained and prevented from injurious excess. They are 

 allowed to continue to a certain degree, namely, as long as they are 

 regulating and beneficial ; but ju&t as soon as their further indulgence 



