NERVOUS SYSTEM. 369 



for had this property been omitted, the animal 

 system would have been but of short duration, 

 exposed, as it must necessarily be, to perpetual 

 casualties of every kind. Lest any imputation 

 should be attempted to be thrown on the bene- 

 volent intentions of the great Author and De- 

 signer of this beautiful and wondrous fabric, so 

 expressly formed for varied and prolonged en- 

 joyment, 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 thecapacities for pleasure, with which 

 it has been beneficently ordained that the healthy 

 exercise of the functions shall be accompanied. 

 Enjoyment appears universally to be the main 

 end, the rule, the ordinary and natural condi- 

 tion : while pain is but the casualty, the excep- 

 tion, the necessary remedy, which is ever tending 

 to a remoter good, in subordination to a higher 

 law of creation. 



It is a wise and bountiful provision of nature 

 that each of the internal parts of the body has 

 been endowed with a particular sensibility to 

 those impressions which, in the ordinary course, 

 have a tendency to injure its structure ; while it 

 has at the same time been rendered nearly, if 

 not completely, insensible to those which are not 

 injurious, or to which it is not likely to be ex- 

 posed. Tendons and ligaments, for example, 



VOL. II. B B 



