122 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



applied to the palate, affect the part so difierently 

 from what it does when rubbed upon the palm of 

 the hand ? This is a constitution which, so far as 

 appears to me, can be resolved into nothing but 

 the pure benevolence of the Creator. Eating is 

 necessar}^ ; but the pleasure attending it is not ne- 

 cessary : and that this pleasure depends, not only 

 upon our being in possession of the sense of taste, 

 which is different from every other, but upon a 

 particular state of the organ in which it resides, a 

 felicitous adaptation of the organ to the object, 

 will be confessed by any one, who may happen to 

 have experienced that vitiation of taste which fre- 

 quently occurs in fevers, when every taste is irregu- 

 lar, and every one bad. 



In mentioning the gratifications of the palate, it 

 may be said that we have made choice of a trifling 

 example.^*' I am not of that opinion. They af- 



^ Neither this nor any other thing which our nature, physical or 

 moral, is formed to relish, can be deemed trifling; and it is well 

 observed afterwards that the very capacity of being pleased with 

 what, by comparison with other things, are termed trivial matters, 

 is itself a source of enjoyment provided for us by the divine bene- 

 ficence. AH men have within themselves the power of being 

 amused or occupied, and interested — tliat is pleased, gratified — 

 with things which, until they make the attempt, they are disposed 

 to regard as wholly incapable of affording any satisfaction. 'J his 

 is a most important source of enjoyment, and one more inde- 

 pendent of external circumstances than they could believe who 

 have never made the experiment. "Le goCit (says Marmontel, 

 J\l6m. I. 431) s'accommodc aux objects dont il pent jouir; et cctle 

 sage maxim e, 



Q,uand on n'a pas ce que I'on aime, 

 II faut aimer ce que Ton a. 



