y briefly indicate a further aspect of
the general principle hitherto traced out, and hint a few of its wider
applications.

Sec. 59. Thus far, then, we have considered only those causes of force in
language which depend upon economy of the mental _energies:_ we have
now to glance at those which depend upon economy of the mental
_sensibilities._ Questionable though this division may be as a
psychological one, it will yet serve roughly to indicate the remaining
field of investigation. It will suggest that besides considering the
extent to which any faculty or group of faculties is tasked in receiving
a form of words and realizing its contained idea, we have to consider
the state in which this faculty or group of faculties is left; and how
the reception of subsequent sentences and images will be influenced by
that state. Without going at length into so wide a topic as the exercise
of faculties and its reactive effects, it will be sufficient here to
call to mind that every faculty (when in a state of normal activity) is
most capable at the outset; and that the change in its condition,
which ends in what we term exhaustion, begins simultaneously with its
exercise. This generalization, with which we are all familiar in our
bodily experiences, and which our daily language recognizes as true
of the mind as a whole, is equally true of each mental power, from the
simplest of the senses to the most complex of the sentiments. If we hold
a flower to the nose for long, we become insensible to its scent. We say
of a very brilliant flash of lightning that it blinds us; which means
that our eyes have for a time lost their ability to appreciate light.
After eating a quantity of honey, we are apt to think our tea is without
sugar. The phrase "a deafening roar," implies that men find a very loud
sound temporarily incapacitates them for hearing faint ones. To a hand
which has for some time carried a heavy body, small bodies afterwards
lifted seem to have lost their weight. Now, the truth at once recognized
in these, its extreme manifestations, may be traced throughout. It may
be shown that alike in the reflective faculties, in the imagination,
in the perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sublime, in
the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, however we may
classify them-action exhausts; and that in proportion as the action is
violent, the subsequent prostration is great.

Sec. 60. Equally, throughout the whole nat