It is also the formation of _intellectual_ habits by mental discipline and study, which opens vast resources for enjoyment that otherwise would be for ever closed. And it is by practicing obedience to parents that _moral_ habits of subordination are formed, which are indispensable to our happiness as citizens, and as subjects of government. There is no enjoyment which can be pointed out, which is not, to a greater or less extent, dependent upon this principle. The influence of habit in regard to the _law of sacrifice_ is especially interesting. The experience of multitudes of our race shows that such tastes and habits may be formed in obeying this law, that what was once difficult and painful becomes easy and pleasant. But this ability to secure enjoyment through habits of self‐control and self‐denial, induced by long practice, so far as experience shows, could never be secured by any other method. That the highest kinds of happiness are to be purchased by more or less _voluntary sacrifice_ and _suffering_ to procure good for others, seems to be a part of that nature of things which we at least may suppose has existed from eternity. We can conceive of the eternal First Cause only as we imagine a mind on the same pattern as our own in constitutional capacities, but indefinitely enlarged in extent and action. Knowledge, wisdom, power, justice, benevolence and rectitude, must be the same in the Creator as in ourselves, at least so far as we can conceive; and, as the practice of self‐sacrifice and suffering for the good of others is our highest conception of virtue, it is impossible to regard the Eternal Mind as all‐perfect without involving this idea. The formation of the habits depends chiefly upon the leading desire or governing purpose, because whatever the mind desires the most it will _act_ the most to secure, and thus by repeated acts will form its habits. The _character_ of every individual, therefore, as before indicated, depends upon the mode of seeking happiness selected by the will. Thus the ambitious man has selected the attainment of power and admiration as his leading purpose, and whatever modes of enjoyment interfere with this are sacrificed. The sensual man seeks his happiness from the various gratifications of sense, and sacrifices other modes of enjoyment that interfere with this. The man devoted to intellectual pursuits, and to seeking reputation and influence through this medium, sacrifices other modes of enjoyment to secure this gratification. The man who has devoted his affections and the service of his life to God and the good of his fellow‐men, sacrifices all other enjoyments to secure that which results from the fulfillment of such obligations. Thus a person is an ambitious man, a sensual man, a man of literary ambition, or a man of piety and benevolence, according to the governing purpose or leading choice of his mind.