Our appetites can, with no propriety, be called selfish, for they are directed to their respective objects as ultimate ends, and they must all have operated, in the first instance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising from their gratification. After this experience, indeed, the desire of enjoyment will naturally come to be combined with the appetite; and it may sometimes lead us to stimulate or provoke the appetite with a view to the pleasure which is to result from indulging it. Imagination, too, and the association of ideas, together with the social affections, and sometimes the moral faculty, lend their aid, and all conspire together in forming a complex passion, in which the animal appetite is only one ingredient. In proportion as this passion is gratified, its influence over the conduct becomes the more irresistible, (for all the active determinations of our nature are strengthened by habit,) till at last we struggle in vain against its tyranny. A man so enslaved by his animal appetites exhibits humanity in one of its most miserable and contemptible forms.

As an additional proof of the misery of such a state, it is of great importance to remark, that, while habit strengthens all our active determinations, it diminishes the liveliness of our passive impressions; - a remarkable instance of which occurs in the effects produced by an immoderate use of strong liquors, which, at the same time that it confirms the active habit of intemperance, deadens and destroys the sensibility of the palate. consequence of this law of our nature, the evils of excessive indulgence are doubled, inasmuch as our sensibility to pleasure decays in proportion as the cravings of appetite increase.

In

In general, it will be found, that, wherever we attempt to enlarge the sphere of enjoyment beyond the limits prescribed by nature, we frustrate our own purpose.

A man so enslaved by his appetites may undoubtedly, in one sense, be called selfish; for, as he must necessarily neglect the duties he owes to others, he may be presumed to be deficient in the benevolent affections. But it cannot be said of him that he is actuated by an inordinate selflove, (meaning by that word an excessive regard for his own happiness,) for he sacrifices to the meanest gratifica

tions all the noblest pleasures of which he is susceptible, and sacrifices to the pleasure of the moment the permanent enjoyments of health, reputation, and conscience. This is true even when the desire of gratification is combined with the original appetite; for no two principles can be more widely at variance than the desire of gratification and the desire of happiness.

Of the errors introduced into morals, in consequence of the vague use of the words selfishness and self-love, I shall afterwards take notice. What I wish chiefly to remark at present is, that in no sense of these words can we refer to them the origin of our animal appetites; and that the active propensities comprehended under this title are ultimate facts in the human constitution.

II. Acquired Appetites.] Besides our natural appetites we have many acquired ones. Such are our appetite for tobacco, for opium, and for other intoxicating drugs. In general, every thing that stimulates the nervous system produces a subsequent languor, which gives rise to a desire of repetition.

The universality of this appetite for intoxicating drugs is a curious fact in the history of our species. "It seems," says Dr. Robertson, "to have been one of the first exertions of human ingenuity to discover some composition of an intoxicating quality; and there is hardly any nation so rude, or so destitute of invention, as not to have succeeded in this fatal research. The most barbarous of the American tribes have been so unfortunate as to attain this art; and even those who are so deficient in knowledge as to be unacquainted with the method of giving an inebriating strength to liquors by fermentation can accomplish the same end by other means. The people of the islands of North America and of California used for this purpose the smoke of tobacco, drawn up with a certain instrument into the nostrils, the fumes of which ascending to the brain, they felt all the transports and frenzy of intoxication. In almost every part of the New World the natives possessed the art of extracting an intoxicating liquor from maize, or the manioc root, the same substances which they convert into bread. The operation

by which they effect this nearly resembles the common one of brewing, but with this difference, that, instead of yeast, they use a nauseous infusion of maize or manioc chewed by their women. The saliva excites a vigorous fermentation, and in a few days the liquor becomes fit for drinking. It is not disagreeable to the taste, and, when swallowed in large quantities, is of an inebriating quality. This is the general beverage of the Americans, which they distinguish by different names, and for which they feel such a violent and insatiable desire, as it is not easy either to conceive or describe."*

Many striking confirmations of this remark occur in the voyages of Cook and of later navigators.

III. Other analogous Propensities.] Our occasional propensities to action and to repose are, in many respects, analogous to our appetites. They have, indeed, all the three characteristics of our appetites already mentioned. They are common, too, to man and to the lower animals, and they operate, in our own species, in the most infant state of the individual. In general, every animal we know is prompted by an instinctive impulse to take that degree of exercise which is salutary to the body, and is prevented from passing the bounds of moderation by that languor and desire of repose which are the consequences of con

tinued exertion.

There is something, also, very similar to this with respect to the mind. We are impelled by nature to the exercise of its different faculties, and we are warned, when we are in danger of overstraining them, by a consciousness of fatigue. After we are exhausted by a long course of application to business, how delightful are the first moments of indolence and repose! O che bella cosa di far niente ! We are apt to imagine that no inducement shall again lead us to engage in the bustle of the world: but, after a short respite from our labors, our intellectual vigor returns; the mind rouses from its lethargy "like a giant from his sleep," and we feel ourselves urged by an irresistible impulse to return to our duties as members of society.

The active principles already mentioned are common to man and to the brutes. But besides these, the latter have some instinctive impulses, of which I do not know that there are any traces to be found in the human race. Such are those antipathies which they discover against the natural enemies of their respective tribes. It is probable, I think, that their existence is guarded entirely by their appetites and antipathies; for the desire of self-preservation implies a degree of reason and reflection which they do not appear to possess. Even in the case of man, this desire is probably the result of his experience of the pleasures which life affords; and, accordingly, as Dr. Beattie very finely remarks, Milton has, with exquisite judgment, represented Adam, in the first moments of his being, as contemplating, without anxiety or regret, the idea of immediate annihilation:

"While thus I called and strayed I knew not whither
From where I first drew air, and first beheld

This happy light, when answer none returned,

On a green, shady bank profuse of flowers

Pensive I sat me down. There gentle sleep

First found me, and with soft oppression seized

My drowzied sense; UNTROUBLED, though I thought
I then was passing to my former state
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve."

CHAPTER II.

OF OUR DESIRES.

OUR desires are distinguished from our appetites by the following circumstances:

1. They do not take their rise from the body.

2. They do not operate periodically after certain intervals, nor do they cease after the attainment of a particular object.

* Paradise Lost, Book VIII. 283.

The most remarkable active principles belonging to this class are,

1. The DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE, or the principle of CURIOSITY.

2. The DESIRE OF SOCIETY.

3. The DESIRE OF ESTEEM.

4. The DESIRE OF POWER, or the principle of AM

BITION.

5. The DESIRE OF SUPERIORITY, or the principle of EMULATION.

SECTION I.

THE DESIRE OF KNOWLEDGE.

I. Early and various Manifestations.] The principle of curiosity appears in children at a very early period, and is commonly proportioned to the degree of intellectual capacity they possess. The direction, too, which it takes is regulated by nature according to the order of our wants and necessities; being confined, in the first instance, exclusively to those properties of material objects, and those laws of the material world, an acquaintance with which is essential to the preservation of our animal existence. Hence the instinctive eagerness with which children handle and examine every thing which is presented to them; an employment which we are commonly apt to consider as a mere exercise of their animal powers, but which, if we reflect on the limited province of sight prior to experience, and on the early period of life at which we are able to judge by the eye of the distances and of the tangible qualities of bodies, will appear plainly to be the most useful occupation in which they could be engaged, if it were in the power of a philosopher to have the regulation of their attention from the hour of their birth. In more advanced years curiosity displays itself in one way or another in every individual, and gives rise to an infinite diversity in their pursuits, engrossing the attention of one man about physical causes, of another about mathematical truths, of a third about historical facts, of a fourth about the objects of natural history, of a fifth about the transactions of private families, or about the politics and news of the day.