NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 273 



measures will probably be in time universally adopted, so 

 that one extensive class of diseases will be altogether or 

 nearly abolished. 



Another large class of diseases spring from mis- 

 management of our personal economy. Eating to 

 excess, eating and drinking what is noxious, disregard 

 t3 that cleanliness which is necessary for the right 

 action of the functions of the skin, want of fresh air 

 for the supply of the lungs, undue, excessive, and 

 irregular indulgence of the mental affections, are all 

 of them recognised modes of creating that derangement 

 of the system in which disease consists. Here also it 

 may be said that a limitation of the mental faculties 

 to definite manifestations {vulgo^ instincts) might have 

 enabled us to avoid many of these errors ; but here 

 again we are met by the consideration that, if we had 

 been so endov/ed, we should have been only as the lower 

 animals are, wanting that transcendently higher cha- 

 racter of sensation and power, by w^hicli our enjoyments 

 are made so much greater. In making the desire of 

 food, for example, with us an indefinite mental manifes- 

 tation, instead of the definite one, which it mainly is 

 amongst the lower animals, the Creator has given us 

 a means of deriving far greater gratifications from food 

 (consistently with health) than the lower animals 

 generally appear to be capable of. He has also given us 

 reason to act as a guiding and controlling power over 

 this and other propensities, so that they may be pre- 

 vented from becoming causes of malady. We can see 

 that excess is injurious, and are thus prompted to 

 moderation. We can see that all the things which we 

 feel inclined to take are not healthful, and are thus 

 exhorted to avoid what are pernicious. We can also 

 see that a cleanly skin and a constant supply of pui-e 



