306 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



impressions ! The pallid complexions, the languid 

 movements, the torpid secretions, the flaccid mus- 

 cles, and disordered functions (including glandular 

 swellings), and consumption itself, attest the truth 

 of this assertion." 



The substitution, therefore, of mental for bodily 

 labour, which is one of the very first effects of 

 civilization, manifestly tends to heighten our sen- 

 sibilities. " The superior cultivation of intellect 

 now so eagerly aimed at, as the means of rising in 

 the world, indeed of getting through it renders 

 the feelings more acute, the sympathies more active 

 the whole moral man, in short, more morbidly 

 sensitive to moral impressions. These impressions 

 are annually multiplying in number, and augment- 

 ing in intensity. The principal sources from 

 whence they flow, in a thousand streams, on suffer- 

 ing humanity, are these ; the fury of politics ; the 

 hazards and anxieties of commerce ; the jealousies, 

 the envies, and rivalries of professions; the strug- 

 gles and contentions of trade ; the privations, dis- 

 contents, and despair of poverty ; to which might, 

 perhaps, be added the terrors of superstition, and the 

 hatreds of sectarianism."* In another part of the 

 same excellent work, the author observes : " Thus, 

 * (Economy of Health, p. 94. 



