262 THE SENSORIAL FUNCTIONS. 



refer them to their respective origins in different parts of the 

 surface. It is also expedient that the internal organs of the 

 body should have some sensibility; but it is better that this 

 should be very limited in degree, since the occasions are few 

 in which its exercise would be useful, and many in which it 

 would be positively injurious: hence, the nerves of sensation 

 are distributed in less abundance to these organs. 



It is not sufficient that the nerves of touch should com- 

 municate the perceptions of the simple pressure or resistance 

 of the bodies in contact with the skin: they should also fur- 

 nish indications of other qualities in those bodies, of which 

 it is important that the mind be apprized; such, for example, 

 as warmth, or coldness. Whether these different kinds of 

 impressions are all conveyed by the same nervous fibres, it 

 is difficult, and, perhaps, impossible to determine. 



When these nerves are acted upon in a way which threat- 

 ens to be injurious to the part impressed, or to the system 

 at large, it is also their province to give warning of the im- 

 pending evil, and to rouse the animal to such exertions as 

 may avert it; and this is effected by the sensation of pain, 

 which the nerves are commissioned to excite on all these oc- 

 casions. They act the part of sentinels, placed at the out- 

 posts, to give signals of alarm on the approach of danger. 



Sensibility to pain must then enter as a necessary consti- 

 tuent among the animal functions; for, had this property 

 been omitted, the animal system would have been but of 

 short duration, exposed, as it must necessarily be, to perpe- 

 tual casualties of every kind. Lest any imputation should 

 be attempted to be thrown on the benevolent intentions of 

 the great Author and Designer of this beautiful and wondrous 

 fabric, so expressly formed for varied and prolonged enjoy- 

 ment, it should always be borne in mind that the occasional 

 suffering, to which an animal is subjected from this law of 

 its organization, is far more than counterbalanced by the 

 consequences arising from the capacities for pleasure, with 

 which it has been beneficently ordained that the healthy ex- 

 ercise of the functions shall be accompanied. Enjoyment 



