126 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



rose-bush. Some insects confine themselves to 

 two or three kinds of plants or animals. Some 

 again show so strong a preference as to afford 

 reason to believe that, though they may be driven 

 by hunger to others, they are led by the pleasure 

 of taste to a few particular plants alone ; and all 

 this, as it should seem, independently of habit or 

 imitation. 



But should we accept the third hypothesis, and 

 even carry it so far as to ascribe every thing 

 which concerns the question to habit, (as in cer- 

 tain species, the human species most particularly, 

 there is reason to attribute something,) we have 

 then before us an animal capacity, not less per- 

 haps to be admired than the native congruities 

 which the other scheme adopts. It cannot be 

 shown to result from any fixed necessity in na- 

 ture, that what is frequently applied to the senses 

 should of course become agreeable to them. It 

 is, so far as it subsists, a power of accommoda- 

 tion provided in these senses by the Author of 

 their structure, and forms a part of their per- 

 fection. 



In whichever way we regard the senses, they 

 appear to be specific gifts, ministering, not only to 

 preservation, but to pleasure. But what we usually 

 call the senseSf are probably themselves far from 

 being the only vehicles of enjoyment, or the whole 

 of our constitution which is calculated for the 

 same purpose. We have many internal sensations 

 of the most agreeable kind, hardly referable to any 



