substances which they convert into bread. The operation by which they affect this nearly resembles the common one of brewing, but with this difference, that, instead of yest, 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.

In

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. 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 continued 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.

* History of America, Vol. p. 396, 4to Edition.

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 call'd and stray'd I knew not whither
From where I first drew air, and first beheld
This happy light, and answer none return'd,
On a green shady bank profuse of flowers
Pensive I sat me down. There gentle sleep
First found me, and with soft oppression seiz'd
My drowsed sense; UNTROUBLED though I thought
I then was passing to my former state

Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve!"

CHAPTER SECOND.

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.

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 Ambition.

5. The Desire of Superiority, or the principle of Emulation.

SECTION I.

The Desire of Knowledge.

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 mate

I have already remarked, (see note p. 9,) that in this part of his work Dr. Reid has used some terms with an undue latitude. Of this a very remarkable instance occurs in the use he has made of the adjective Animal; in consequence of which he has been led to rank among our animal principles of action (that is, among the active principles common to man with the brutes) not only the desire of knowledge and the desire of esteem, but pity to the distressed, patriotism, and other benevolent affections.

rial 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.

Whether this diversity be owing to natural pre-disposition, or to early education, it is of little consequence to determine, as upon either supposition, a preparation is made for it in the original constitution of the mind, combined with the circumstances of our external situation. Its final cause is also sufficiently obvious, as it is this which gives rise in the case of individuals to a limitation of attention and study, and lays the foundation of all the advantages which society derives from the division and subdivision of intellectual labor.

These advantages are so great that some philosophers have attempted to resolve the desire of knowledge into self-love. But to this theory the same objection may be stated which was already made to the attempts of some philosophers to account, in a similar way, for the origin of our appetites; that all of these are active principles, manifestly directed by nature to particular specific objects, as their ultimate ends;-that, as the object of hunger is not happiness but food, so the object of curiosity is not happiness but knowledge. To

this analogy Cicero has very beautifully alluded, when he calls knowledge the natural food of the understanding. "Est animorum ingeniorumque nostrorum naturale quoddam quasi pabulum consideratio contemplatioque naturæ." We can indeed conceive a being prompted merely by the cool desire of happiness to accumulate information; but, in a creature like man, endowed with a variety of other active principles, the stock of his knowledge would probably have been scanty, unless selflove had been aided in this particular by the principle of curiosity.

Although, however, the desire of knowledge is not resolvable into self-love, it is not in itself an object of moral approbation. A person may indeed employ his intellectual powers with a view to his own moral improvement, or to the happiness of society, and so far he acts from a laudable principle. But to prosecute study merely from the desire of knowledge is neither virtuous nor vicious. When not suffered to interfere with our duties it is morally innocent. The virtue or vice does not lie in the desire, but in the proper or improper regulation of it. The ancient astronomer who, when accused of indifference with respect to public transactions, answered that his country was in the heavens, acted criminally, inasmuch as he suffered his desire of knowledge to interfere with the duties which he owed to mankind.

At the same time it must be admitted, that the desire of knowledge (and the same observation is applicable to our other desires) is of a more dignified nature than those appetites which are common to us with the brutes. A thirst for science has been always considered as a mark of a liberal and elevated mind; and it generally co-operates with the moral faculty in forming us to those habits of self-government which enable us to keep our animal appetites in due subjection.

There is another circumstance which renders this desire peculiarly estimable, that it is always accompanied with a strong desire to communicate our knowledge to others; insomuch, that it has been doubted if the principle of curiosity would be sufficiently powerful to animate the intellectual exertions of any man in a long