70 CONSEQUENCES OF EXCESS. 



SECTION III. 



Nature and Management of the Senses. 



VERY little preparation is necessary for observing 

 nature, because we are all formed for that express 

 purpose ; and, instead of it costing us any effort to 

 observe, our powers of observation torture us with 

 listlessness and ennui if we shut them up idly, and 

 will not suffer them to instruct us. Still, all those 

 powers are capable of improvement ; and the beauty 

 of the matter is, that the exercise and the improve- 

 ment are exactly the same. No sense of the body 

 is in a state fit for accurate observation unless the 

 oody generally be in a state of health ; an excess 

 of any kind renders the hand tremulous, the eye 

 dim, the ear either dull or painfully sensitive, and 

 nothing is fragrant to the smell or pleasant to the 

 taste. Those who commit excesses get their pun- 

 ishment in this way ; and a severe punishment it 

 is. We are accustomed to say of those who are in 

 such a state that they are "half-dead;" and the 

 expression is very correct ; for each sense may be 

 diminished to a half, or even to a smaller fraction 

 of its healthful quantity ; and thus the person who 

 is in that unfortunate condition is literally dead to 

 the full measure of the deficiency. No matter what 

 the excess consists in ; for though various kinds of 

 excess have different effects, and the effects of some 

 are more permanently mischievous than those of 

 others, yet every kind of excess is a mischief; and 

 we cannot gratify any one sense or even insensi- 

 bility itself, to a state of intoxication, without pay- 

 ing for it in our general happiness. Excess of food 



