hensible except by the aid of sound physiology. And here we may be allowed to express our surprise, that this eminently useful and delightful science, almost the foundation of all others, has been so long and so totally neglected by the general student, as a branch of physical knowledge. To attempt, as has often been done, to understand the natural and reciprocal action of the intellect, the passions, and the corporeal functions, and to appreciate rightly the modifications ocasioned by external influences, without its assistance, is evidently absurd. Hence the inquiries which have been instituted to discover the relation between health and certain pursuits, have been to a great extent unsuccessful. Of the precise combination of causes which is the source of the numerous complaints of students, there is a great degree of ignorance, even at this day. Such causes have been sought exclusively in too severe intellectual application, in errors of diet, in the neglect of muscular exercise, or perhaps in a disregard of the innocent pleasures and amusements of life. Now two or more, or oftener, all these causes may be operative in different cases, and with different degrees of force; and the inquiry which is directed to the consideration of only one, and that, it may be, of subordinate concern, does not promise any useful results. Besides, the knowledge that any one of these causes is truly influential, can be of but little practical utility, unless its effects upon the living functions, and the laws and sympathies of the human system are accurately known. The isolated fact that neglect of exercise is among the sources of ill-health, does not suggest any certain means of preventing the latter, unless this neglect is taken in connection with the other errors of conduct and practice, which may co-exist with it; nor does this fact lead with any certainty to the application of a remedy for the disordered movements which the want of exercise may have occasioned, unless the nature of these movements, and the circumstances necessary to give the required effect, are familiarly understood. For instance, though corporeal inaction very commonly has an influence in producing the complaints of students, mere mechanical exercise of the muscles does not promise to preserve his health; and it is well known, that it is not adequate to his restoration when he has become a debilitated and nervous invalid. Even were the neglect of bodily exercise, the only circumstance in which the literary man had erred, the mere use of his limbs, when that use is irksome, or connected with disagreeable associations, would not restore the lost balance of his functions, and free him from the torments of dyspepsia. That our knowledge and use of particular facts, then may not be empirical, it is necessary that they be referred to their principles-principles which it is the business of physiology to unfold. With such principles in our hands, we shall be able to comprehend the operation of agents and influences, external and inter

nal upon the human economy; and shall also perhaps be able to deduce from them practical rules of action, by the observance of which, disease and suffering may be prevented or averted, and lost health recovered.

If we regard man analytically or anatomically, we find him a compound being-an assemblage of contiguous and related organs, in some sense independent of each other, as the brain, lungs, stomach, muscles, nerves, organs of sense, etc. These compose

the man as a part of the natural world. Each organ has its own appropriate use, or in the language of physiology, function. Thus the lungs are for respiration, the eye for vision, the brain for the manifestation of thought and emotion,* etc. It is in the proper exercise of these functions, individually and collectively, or of the organs upon which they depend, that health consists. Where health exists, there is an equal and proportionate activity of all the organs,-a condition which is accompanied by a sort of pleasura ble sensation, (not the mere negation of pain,) which though not easy to describe, every one has felt, who has ever enjoyed the blessing of sound health. To secure this proper exercise, there is implanted in each organ, or set of organs, what is called a want; which is as various in its nature as the functions are various, and specific in each instance. The end and appropriate design of this, is the due exercise of the organ to which it appertains. This want, when its object is present, is transformed into a feeling of complacency, or the pleasurable sensation above alluded to: in the absence of its object, it becomes a sensation of uneasiness, pain, desire, or aversion. When the organ is too little exercised for the good of itself and the animal economy, there results uneasiness, and desire, as in the case of that want which has its seat in the stomach, known by the name of hunger. When the organ is too actively exerci sed, it is weariness, lassitude, pain, aversion, as in the instance of muscular fatigue, or a surfeit. In all these latter cases, it prompts to acts which are necessary for self-conservation. It sometimes impels almost irresistibly. We turn away from food in the case of satiety, with loathing; we seek it with earnestness, even violence, when hungry. We are compelled to draw a finger from the blaze of a candle, and cannot avoid closing the eye when its organization is likely to be injured by a too sudden and intense light. This want as it exists in the muscular system, becomes

* It is here taken for granted that the brain is the organ of the mind. For an intelligible and popular statement of the argument proving this, see Brigham on mental cultivation. It will be there seen, that mind in its manifestation, or in its phenomena as presented to our senses, has the same relation to the brain, that sight has to the eye, which brings the former within the physiological defi

nition of a function.

leasure when the muscles are duly exercised, as seen in the volntary muscular activity of the child, and the gratification which he eems to derive from it. It becomes lassitude, or even pain, when this exercise is too prolonged or too severe; and we notice he boy withdrawing from his sports and seeking repose. If abstinence from this species of exercise is protracted by constraint, we witness the utmost impatience, and when freedom is obtained, the most active demonstrations of joy.

The end of these wants, or instincts, as they have sometimes been called, is the preservation of the individual and the species. They are implanted in our organs by a beneficent Providence, to conduct us safely in those things which pertain to our well-being, in which reason would prove an inadequate and blind, or an uncertain and too dilatory guide. Their decisions are immediate, imperative, unerring; while those of reason are slow, calculating, often doubtful, and often false. How long would life be protracted were the function of respiration committed to the guidance of the reasoning faculty? Reason is often called upon to execute requisitions, or to provide and select means to gratify the demands. of our organs; but it is never trusted to point out the reasonableness of these requisitions or demands. It has an important part to act in procuring the means to satify hunger; but it is never asked whether this hunger and its satisfaction by food are a dictate of wisdom-whether aliment would really contribute to the welfare of our being. These wants secure their end and object, by the pleasure which their gratification imparts. They communicate to the animal machine its self-moving, self-regulating, self-determining, self-preserving power. They are tlie lamp, the light Within us which a beneficent Creator has given to illumine our path, to direct our course, to conduct us in safety along the deviOus way of life-the law of nature stamped upon this noble work of God to serve as a compass, a pole-star, and beacon, to guide us through the dangers which beset our passage; to protect us amid the ten thousand destructive elements with which we are surrounded; threatening shipwreck to our existence; to give security when led astray by erring and short-sighted reason, or hurried into danger by the impetuosity of passion. They are the tutelar god of the internal man, whose oracular voice is always timely, always audible, always true; whose warnings are not to be disregarded, whose demands are not to be refused or deferred, whose threats are not an empty sound-a sword in its sheath-a lion in chains, impotent and harmless. They are thunder, accompanied with the riving and desolating power of the electric element. The guardian spirit remonstrates at abuses, whether of excess or defect, in a tone so loud and so earnest, that it seldom fails to be heard and obeyed. It is by giving himself to the direction of these wants, VOL. V.

49

that man secures his life and his health, and arrives at the highest perfection of which his organization is susceptible. By rendering obedience to their calls, he acquires and preserves that developement, that proportion and soundness of his organs, which is requisite to the proper and vigorous discharge of all his functions -that happy condition of the whole system in which every faculty, mental and corporeal, possesses the greatest possible degree of activity and power which is compatible with the due exercise of the other faculties—a condition which is the ne plus ultra of natural perfection—the very end and object of our organic being.

These organic wants, or instincts, or laws, if obeyed, it has been said, conduct to the enjoyments of health and the vigor of the faculties. This is as much as to say, that the violation of the laws in question, is followed by disorder-an imperfect and painful discharge of the functions; for a law without a penalty attached to its infringement, whether it be in the organic or physical world, morals or jurisprudence, is virtually no law at all. The penalty is not the mere animal suffering attendant upon the process of violation, but something subsequent or consequent. It is an effect and not a concomitant. Like the punishment which he suffers who breaks a civil or moral law, it rarely strikes down the offender in the instant of transgression. It often follows at the distance of a long period. A man may die of the injury done his organization by a single meal of indigestible food, though it is not often that the functions are appreciably deranged until the stomach has been repeatedly goaded and abused. A paroxism of powerful mental excitement may kill instantaneously, by its effects upon the brain, though more frequently the progress of disorder is more tardy, and by degrees.

The design of all penalties, attached to the infringement of law, is to secure obedience. The momentary pain which is the instant attendant upon violation, is not always adequate to this purpose. To prevent the infraction of moral laws, the voice of conscience is too feeble of itself; therefore, a penalty, remorse, has been instituted, the better to secure their observance. With the same design, disease is made the natural consequence of the infringement of the organic laws. This penalty operates as an additional motive to obedience. It gives an inducement which is needed. The load and oppression at stomach, which accompany a surfeit, are often insufficient to prevent the indulgence of a pampered appetite; and the pains of indigestion are incurred. The nausea and head-ache, which attend a fit of intoxication, are of too trifling inconvenience to stay the trembling hand of the self-destroyer; and the drunkard has a diseased and broken constitution in prospect. Instinct has a powerful adjunct in the penalty in question. The tormenting disorders, and the mental and corporeal imbecility,

which are seen to follow a life of intemperance and vice, make a forcible appeal to the reason and judgments of men, and through the intervention of the rational powers, exert an influence upon conduct, which instinct and conscience would fail to do. Thus, the thought of retribution is constantly in the mind of him who transgresses the laws of his nature. Not only the reasoning faculty, but the imagination and the passions are brought in to aid in the work of self-preservation. Fear is one of the strongest motives to action, and incentives to duty. The fate of the drunkard makes an effectual appeal to this sentiment, often when it fails to lay hold of any other principle of our nature; and we observe a sensible pause in the step of him who is placed in the way of temptation. Thus, we see the well-being of our organs and faculties surrounded by double walls, and guarded by double centries. Every provision seems to have been made, in the constitution of our bodies, to secure the end of human organic existence-the perfection of man in all his natures, animal, intellectual and affective. Among these previsions, we would rank first and chief, the unerring principle within, the almost sole guide of the brute, which suggests in the instant of need, the path of danger and the path of safety-which is the ultimate rule of action in every emergency which concerns the internal economy of our organs and functions, and the perpetuity of the species. We have next reason, coinciding in its judgments with instinct, which finds, in the penalty which is the reward of transgression, a powerful additional motive to obedience to the laws of our organs. It demonstrates, by an appeal to experience and example, the folly and danger of error; while the imagination sets before the mind, in all its freshness, the melancholy fate of him who has stifled the cries of nature, and paints in vivid colors the desolating consequences of vicious and unnatural indulgence. The controlling and powerful sentiment of fear is thus made to bear upon the interests of the economy, and to contribute its efficient aid to deter from acts of disobedience.

Notwithstanding all that has been done by a kind providence to insure the observance of the organic laws, and to secure sound health and faculties to man, these laws are infringed, the barriers which serves as his defense against impending dangers thrown down, and pain and disease and imbecility of all the powers incurred. These laws, notwithstanding the warnings of instinct, the convictions of reason, the lessons of experience and example, and the fear of retribution, are still broken. We see man in the full light of day, against the just weight of motives and the known interests. of self, still the transgressor of those wise and easily obeyed laws which have been established for the guidance and government of his actions. This fact, so abundantly confirmed by observation and