at we seldom meet with a great degree of
Health which is not attended with a certain Chearfulness, but very often
see Chearfulness where there is no great degree of Health.

Chearfulness bears the same friendly regard to the Mind as to the Body:
It banishes all anxious Care and Discontent, sooths and composes the
Passions, and keeps the Soul in a Perpetual Calm. But having already
touched on this last Consideration, I shall here take notice, that the
World, in which we are placed, is filled with innumerable Objects that
are proper to raise and keep alive this happy Temper of Mind.

If we consider the World in its Subserviency to Man, one would think it
was made for our Use; but if we consider it in its natural Beauty and
Harmony, one would be apt to conclude it was made for our Pleasure. The
Sun, which is as the great Soul of the Universe, and produces all the
Necessaries of Life, has a particular Influence in chearing the Mind of
Man, and making the Heart glad.

Those several living Creatures which are made for our Service or
Sustenance, at the same time either fill the Woods with their Musick,
furnish us with Game, or raise pleasing Ideas in us by the
delightfulness of their Appearance, Fountains, Lakes, and Rivers, are as
refreshing to the Imagination, as to the Soil through which they pass.

There are Writers of great Distinction, who have made it an Argument for
Providence, that the whole Earth is covered with Green, rather than with
any other Colour, as being such a right Mixture of Light and Shade, that
it comforts and strengthens the Eye instead of weakning or grieving it.
For this reason several Painters have a green Cloth hanging near them,
to ease the Eye upon, after too great an Application to their Colouring.
A famous modern Philosopher [2] accounts for it in the following manner:
All Colours that are more luminous, overpower and dissipate the animal
Spirits which are employd in Sight; on the contrary, those that are more
obscure do not give the animal Spirits a sufficient Exercise; whereas
the Rays that produce in us the Idea of Green, fall upon the Eye in such
a due proportion, that they give the animal Spirits their proper Play,
and by keeping up the struggle in a just Ballance, excite a very
pleasing and agreeable Sensation. Let the Cause be what it will, the
Effect is certain, for which reason the Poets ascribe to this particular
Colour the Epithet of Chearful.

To consider further this double End