and virtue. These are evident and essential differences between the understanding and the taste; and show us that they are totally distinct faculties, from which operations of a different nature proceed.

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ESSAY IX.

Of Appetites.

The appetites constitute a subject as difficult to understand and explain as any one, perhaps, that appertains to the human mind. A patient, and careful attention is necessary in the reader, while examining this intricate and important subject. With it is connected several interesting truths. And an understanding of it is requisite to a knowledge of human nature. For the appetites comprise every principle of action, and constitute the faculty of taste of which we have taken only a general view.

When we attend to the numerous objects, which either please, or disgust us, we find great differences among them. Light, and colours, food, and drink, sounds of every tone, odours of every species, solidity, extension, and all the objects of the senses, are very dissimilar. Though they may have a similitude to each other in some respects, yet in many others they widely differ. Truth and falsehood, good and evil, beauty and deformity, amiable and odious characters, are objects, which differ from each other, and from the objects of sense. Yet such varieties of objects please or displease us. How can we

account for this?

We know the blind never experience any sensations from light and colours,nor the deaf from sounds. By the eye we cannot distinguish sounds, nor by the ear light. From this, if from no other source, we may safely infer, that the senses are differently constructed, and suited to the nature of the objects from which the mind derives different sensations. All the senses are necessary to the existence of those internal feelings,

which we experience. By one sense only we become acquainted with but few objects. All the five senses are necessary to the knowledge we now have of external things, and the sensations they produce in our hearts. Something similar to our bodily senses must belong to the heart, or we can never account for the numerous sensations we experience from objects dissimilar in their kind and nature. Will the same internal sense, which is pleased with light, and colours, delight also in sounds, both grave, acute, lively, and solemn? Will the same internal sense be pleased with both vice and virtue? If all mankind have but one internal, feeling sense, how comes it to pass, that objects, which please one, disgust another? How can this phenomenon in the moral world be accounted for? It is a known fact, that objects which are agreeable to one person, displease another. This is not owing to the bodily senses. For these senses are not the subjects of either pleasure or pain. The heart is the only subject of agreeable and painful sensations. The bodily senses are only mediums, through which the heart is affected.

God has so constructed the heart, or the faculty of taste, there is a preparedness or adaptedness in it to be pleased with objects of one kind, and a preparedness to be pleased with objects of a different kind. That objects very different from each other do please us, is a fact. From this fact we may safely infer, the heart is adapted in its nature to be pleased with objects of different kinds, as different as vice and virtue, sounds and colours. A preparedness to be pleased with a definite class of objects, is what I mean by an appetite. One person is prepared to be pleased with virtue. This is an appetite for virtue. Another has not this adaptedness in his heart, he has not, therefore, an appetite for virtue. This is the reason, one person is delighted with virtue, and another is not. particular preparedness of the heart to be pleased with a definite class of objects, is the sense in which I shall use the word appetite. Using it in this sense, I give it a more extensive meaning, I grant, than writers commonly do. For this reason it is conceived necessary to be somewhat particular,in explaining the meaning I affix to the term. Attention to the opera

This

tions of the heart leads us necessarily to view it as endued with such distinct fitnesses to be pleased with objects of different kinds. To this particular fitness I give the name appetite, because I know of no other word in the English language by

which it can with greater propriety be called. If any would prefer the word sense, or relish, if they use them to mean the same thing, I have no objection. I may sometimes use them to avoid a frequent repetition of the same word. But when I do,I shall mean by them the same thing the word appetite signifies.

When I have attended to an enumeration and illustration of some of our appetites, I will then attempt to show the difference, between them and the faculty of taste. Our appetites are either natural, or acquired. Some of those with which we are born are the following.

1. An appetite for food. When born, we are prepared to take more or less satisfaction in the different kinds of food, which are suited to nourish the body. An appetite for food is called hunger, and an appetite for water is termed thirst. When we analyze hunger, we find an uneasy sensation, with a desire for food, that it may be removed, ever attends it. This sensation and desire are the operations of this appetite. The appetite, and its operations, are distinct objects of consideration. Care ought to be taken never to confound them. Between all our appetites and their operations, this distinction ought to be made. If the taste was not prepared to be pleased with food, we might use it, yet we should never experience the sensation of pleasure in eating, nor a desire to enjoy it. An appetite is antecedent to all its operations, and is the subject of them. It has a being, when its operations are not experienced. The heart, therefore, is always prepared to be the subject of those operations, which belong to the appetite of hunger. For this preparedness is the appetite itself.

This appetite is attended with an uneasy sensation, what some would call a hankering, and a desire for something to remove it. Food is the object, which will remove the uneasy sensation. As soon as we have learned this fact, then food is the particular object of desire. When we eat, food not only removes the uneasiness, but affords us pleasure. This appetite, then,is attended with three distinct operations; uneasiness, desire, and pleasure.

This uneasy sensation is a feeling of the appetite. When this exists, it feels, it hankers, it desires food, it longs for it. Its desires are strong or weak,in proportion to the degree of the uneasy sensation. This feeling will produce all the actions necessary to obtain food. It is, therefore, an active principle,

an original spring to those actions necessary to get food, which is the only object that can afford gratification. In like manner, each individual appetite belonging to the heart is a principle of action. They are the primary, self-moving, exciting causes to all the actions requisite to the attainment of those objects, which will gratify them. When an appetite is gratified, it ceases to operate, until uneasiness begins again to arise. The great design of God,in implanting in the heart this appetite of hunger,is very obvious. The design of it is the preservation of life. Food is necessary to the life of the body. And this appetite is the only active principle, which will move us to get and eat the food necessary to the preservation of life. In this view it is an important principle, and answers a most valuable purpose.

What has been said respecting hunger, is true in relation to thirst. These are distinct appetites. For we may be hungry, without thirst; and be thirsty, without hunger. Hence an appetite for food will not prompt us to seek for water. Though they are distinct, yet the same operations belong to each of them, and each of them is a principle of action. I need, therefore, give no further attention to the appetite of thirst.

2. The natural affections constitute a distinct appetite. These include the parental, filial, and fraternal affections. The propensity to exercise them may be called a particular and distinct appetite.

rents.

It is a fact, that all parents have a feeling for their offspring, which they never experience towards the children of other paTheir own children afford them pleasant sensations. From this feeling arise desires and exertions to preserve their lives, their health, and to provide for them, and promote their prosperity and happiness. These are facts. And those we consider and call our offspring, include that class of objects, with which this appetite is pleased. This, like the other, is a feeling appetite; it is an internal, active principle; and another law of our nature by which we are daily governed. And those possess it, who are not as yet parents; and it will operate as soon as they have any offspring.

And the design of God in giving to men this appetite is obvious. It is the principle, which will stimulate them to take a watchful care of their children in infancy, and to do all they can to render them useful, and respectable in this world.

Hence it is a necessary, and very useful, active principle, as long as our race is to inhabit the earth.-The same general remarks will apply to the other natural affections.

3. The prospensity of the different sexes for social intercourse is another appetite; an active principle, a law of our nature, implanted in man for the propagation and continuance of the human race, until time shall be no more. What has been said concerning the other appetites, is applicable to this law of our nature.

4. Another appetite implanted in the heart is generally called pity. We find it is a fact, which all experience more or less, that when we see any of our fellow mortals in a state of pain and distress, and unable to help themselves, an uneasy sensation is excited. Their distress, misery, and helpless condition, excite in us a painful sensation. We find the ready way to remove the pain we feel, is to afford them help and relief. Desires arise at once to afford them assistance, and exertions are made for this purpose. And as soon as they are relieved, and freed from the miseries they suffered, the pain we felt is removed. Then we have no more feeling for them, than for others, who need not our help.

The object of this appetite is the distress and misery of mankind. Experience teaches, that it is a very active principle, and a law of our nature, like other appetites. And the design of God in giving it, is evident; to stimulate us to afford help to the helpless. Were it not for this, many would die in extreme misery, who now are preserved alive.

5. An appetite to be pleased with novelty is implanted in us. Mankind are much pleased with new things; with new discoveries and improvements in the arts and sciences. This disposition to be pleased with objects which are new to us, is an active principle in us, exciting us to every exertion of mind and body necessary to make new discoveries. This is the principle, which stimulates mankind to exertion to improve the mind, to acquire knowledge, and make advances in the fields of art and science. Deprive men of this stimulus, they would sink down into a state of ignorance, and mental darkness, and remain contented in it. So far as a mind improves, new objects are discovered. These new discoveries are one source of our entertainment and happiness in this world.

6. Another appetite with which Adam was created is termed