THE GOOPNESS OF THE DEITY. 277 



sJso that the use extends further than we suppose, or can 

 now trace ; that to disagreeable sensations, we, and all an- 

 imals, owe, or have owed, many habits of action which are 

 salutary, but which are become so familiar as not easily to 

 be referred to their origin. 



Pain also itself is not without its alleviations. It may be 

 violent and frequent ; but it is seldom both violent and long 

 continued : and its pauses and intcrmij^sions become posi- 

 tive pleasures. It has the power of shedding a satisfaction 

 over intervals of ease, which, I believe, few enjoyments ex- 

 ceed. A man resting from a fit of tl»e stone or gout, is, for 

 the time, in possession of feelings which undisturbed health 

 cannot impart. They may be dearly bought, but siill they 

 are to be set against the price. And, indeed, it depends 

 upon tlie duration and urgency of the pain, whether they be 

 dearly ;)ought or not. I am far from being sure, that a man 

 is not a gainer by suffering a moderate interruption of bod- 

 ily ease for a couple of hours out of the four-and-twenty. 

 Two very common observations favour this opinion : one is, 

 that remissions of pain call forth, from those who experi- 

 ence them, stronger expressions of satisfaction and of grati- 

 tude towards both the author and the instruments of their 

 relief, than are excited by advantages of any other kind : 

 the second is, that the spirits of sick men do not sink ia 

 proportion to the acuteness of their sufferings ; but rather 

 appear to be roused and supported, not by pain, but by the 

 high degree of comfort which they derive from its cessa- 

 tion, or even its subsidency, whenever that occurs : and 

 which they taste with a relish, that diffuses some portion of 

 mental complacency over the whole of that mixed state of 

 sensations in which disease has placed them. 



In connexion with bodily pain may be considered bodily 

 disease, whether painful or not. Few diseases are fatal. 

 I have before me the account of a dispensary in the neigh- 

 bourhood which states six years' experience as follows : 

 " admitted 6,420— cwm/ 5,476— dead 2;34." And this I 

 suppose nearly to agree with what other similar institutions 

 exhibit. Now in all these cases, some disorder must have 

 been felt, or the patients would not have applied for a rem- 

 edy ; yet we see how large a proportion of the maladies 

 which were brought forward, have either yielded to proper 

 treatment, or, what is more probable, ceased of their own 

 accord. We owe these frequent recoveries, and, where re- 

 covery does not take place, this patience of the human con- 

 stituiion under mauy ©f the distempers by which it is ?isitv 



