.3.32 THE SENSORIAL FUNCTIONS. 



sary constituent 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 perpetual casualties of 

 every kind. Lest any imputation should be at- 

 tempted 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 enjoyment, 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 beneticently or- 

 dained that the healthy exercise of the functions 

 should be accompanied. Enjoyment appears uni- 

 versally to be the main end, the rule, the ordinary 

 and natural condition ; while pain is but the 

 casualty, the exception, the necessary remedy, 

 which is ever tending to a remoter good, in subordi- 

 nation 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 im- 

 pressions which, in the ordinary course, have a ten- 

 dency 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 exposed. Tendons and 

 ligaments, for example, are insensible to many 

 causes of mechanical irritation, such as cutting, 

 pricking, and even burning ; but the moment they 

 are violently stretched, (that being the mode in 

 which they are most liable to be injured,) they 



