MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PERIODS OF LIFE. 273 



sufficient at the time, hunger will come in and reconcile the whole ; 

 so that no man can think of any one kind of food for twelve hours. 

 Therefore the simple disappointment of any one kind of food cannot 

 long affect the mind ; and, whatever may be the strength of a man's 

 relative quality for any one kind of food more than another, it will be 

 annihilated when he is set down to twenty dishes. 



The same observations are equally just with regard to other appetites ; 

 only that for food, although the most essential to life, is the one that 

 will produce the least effect upon the mind ; and that arises entirely 

 from its being the most essential. The other appetites, being less 

 essential to life, allow the mind to dwell more upon them ; and, to 

 gratify them in a particular manner becomes more an act of the mind, 

 than in the appetite for food. The enjoyment can be suspended in 

 case all the relative qualities (either imaginary or real) are not present ; 

 and these relative qualities are more peculiarly mental than simple 

 enjoyment is. 



A man has an appetite to enjoy a woman ; but if the mind has 

 formed itself to any particular woman, the appetite or enjoyment can 

 be suspended till that object is presented; t and the more the mind 

 interferes, the greater stress will be laid upon this relation : the 

 mere sexual enjoyment will be almost forgot, and the whole pursuit 

 will be after the particular quality of the appetite. But, perhaps, it 

 requires long habit to establish the influence of such a relative 

 quality in the mind. 



Such is the state of youth till man arrives at full possession of all his 

 appetites and sensations. Then he is in full powers of enjoying them ; 

 and, in this state of possession, he goes on for years ; but his tempo- 

 rary appetites, as venery, become in time blunted, and often in some 

 degree his essential ones, as that for food ; and he begins to lose the 

 substance in pursuit of the qualities, refining away the natural man, 

 becoming rather ideal; whence arise ' taste,' ' graces,' &c. 



The man begins to combine the sensations, and form ideas more 

 extensive. From reasoning, he looks further forward; which, in a 

 proportional degree, lessens the present [enjoyment], except it be con- 

 nected with the future. He is considering substantial for the future, 

 which always takes in a much greater scope of reasoning ; as there are. 

 always a greater number of relative circumstances. He not only con- 

 siders substances, but the qualities of substances, and endeavours to 

 investigate, separate, arrange, and combine these qualities. 



All these actions are of the mind ; and as they took their origin 

 from the nervous system, they continue to belong to it. 



The mind now becomes the principal actor. It is viewing objects in 



T 



