the most luminous point of view. But we have detained our
readers too long from the admirable work which it is our object to make
known to them. It opens in the following manner:--

"It was once suggested by an eminent physiologist, that the
greatest enjoyments of our animal nature might be those which,
from their constancy, escape our notice altogether.

"His investigations had led him to think, that even the
involuntary motions carried on in our system, were productive of
pleasure; and that the act of respiration was probably attended
by a sensation as delightful as the gratifications of the palate.
It is certain that every sense is a source of unnoticed
pleasures. Sound and light are agreeable in themselves, before
their varied combinations have produced music to our ear, or
conveyed the perceptions of form to our mind. Innumerable are the
emotions of pleasure conveyed to the imagination and the senses,
by the endless diversities of form, colour, and sound; and the
unbought riches poured upon us from these sources, are more
prolific of enjoyment, than any of the far-sought distinctions
which stir the hopes and rivalries of men. Yet, on these and
other spontaneous blessings, no one reflects, or even enumerates
them among the sources of happiness, till some casual suspension
of them revives sensibility to the delight they afford.

"Such are the lamentations, though rarely so eloquently uttered,
which we daily hear on the loss of some possession, which, while
held, was scarcely noticed; and could preserve its owner, neither
from the gloom of apathy, nor the irritation of discontent.

"Were it not for this, the necessary effect of habit both in the
physical and moral world, women might be expected to live in
daily and hourly exultation, who have been born in a Christian
and civilized country. Whatever theorists may have thought
occasionally of the happiness of men in barbarous or savage
conditions, no doubt at all can be entertained as to that of
women. It is civilization which has taken the yoke from their
neck, the scourge from their back, and the burden from their
shoulders. It is Christianity chiefly which has raised them from
the state of slaves or menials to that of citizens, and compelled
their rough and unresisted tyrants to call up law in their
defence; that potent spiri