340 THE BROOK. 



merely, but pleasure is the result. If we have been 

 walking upon level ground till the limbs are stiffened, 

 let us ascend or descend a steep, and we are at once 

 vigorous. Even the sluggard, who has lain dozing in 

 bed till the weight of his own flesh and bones has 

 pressed the vessels and stopped the circulation of the . 

 one side, feels ease, and even pleasure, as he turns 

 himself with slowness and hesitation to the other side. 

 If the sight has become pained and dim to the per- 

 ception of one colour, nature has another, in her won- 

 derful beam of radiance, which will not only give 

 relief to the aching eye, but absolutely, a clearer per- 

 ception of the new colour, and a keener admiration of 

 its beauty, than if the former one had never been seen. 

 All the senses have this power ; the most luscious 

 taste palls upon the tongue, and the sweetest perfume 

 offends in the nostril, when the one or the other is 

 borne too long ; and the organ and the feeling equally 

 demand that change which brings relief. 



Now if the members of the body, which are merely 

 the earthy tools with which the mind works, perform 

 their offices so much better by a change in their 

 objects, how much more must it be the case with the 

 mind ! That grasping and comprehensive energy, which, 

 taking tangibility from one sense, colour from another, 

 sound from a third, scent from a fourth, and sapidity 

 from a fifth, moulds all their combined reports into one 

 idea of existent substance, distinguishes that from all 

 other substances around, however fine their shades of 

 difference may be, finds out what has been its past 

 states of existence, the uses to which it may be turned, 

 and the rank that it holds in the general scale of being 



