AND ANIMAL LIFE. 355 



all times injurious, Providence has so constituted 

 our minds, and the world without us, that it is 

 almost impossible to dwell long on what is dis- 

 agreeable to our feelings. The variety of our 

 intellectual faculties, sentiments, and passions, 

 is with difficulty concentrated to one point: 

 each having its own individual object, will, as it 

 were, unconsciously steal from the absorbing 

 subject, and apply itself to that which has a 

 much closer relation to its taste ; and Na- 

 ture, whether endowed with animal or vegeta- 

 tive life, or whether subject to inorganic laws, 

 teems with those diversities that are well fitted 

 to elevate or expand the mind, or, with eloquence 

 peculiar to herself, will teach us either to over- 

 look or to improve the present. 



CCCCXXVI. In those cases in which the 

 mind continues to brood upon its sorrows till 

 the body is too much emaciated to recover its 

 wonted energy, the explanation of the pheno- 

 mena will be found in the principles developed 

 in different parts of this work. To break the 

 chain of unpleasant associations, the first step is 

 to remove the individual from the situation 

 with which these are connected ; or, by lively 

 society and cheerful amusements, to present new 

 objects for thought : or, if he complain of ima- 

 ginary or slight derangements of the system, to 

 prescribe rather to satisfy his fancy than to cure 

 supposed diseases. The mere exhibition of me* 



