Thus it appears that the mind is so made as to desire pain both for itself and for others; not in itself considered, but as the indispensable means to gain some consequent enjoyment. The _highest kinds_ of happiness result from painful emergencies. The transports of love, gratitude, and delight, when some benefactor rescues suffering thousands from danger and evil, could exist in no other way. All the long train of virtues included in patient toil for the good of others, in heroic daring, in brave adventure, in fortitude, in patience, in resignation, in heavenly meekness, in noble magnanimity, in sublime self‐ sacrifice, all involve the idea of trial, danger, and suffering. It is only the highest and noblest class of minds that can fully understand that the most blissful of all enjoyments are those which are bought with pain. But the most cheering feature in the constitution of mind is all that is included in the principle of _habit_. We see in the commencement of existence that every action of mind and body is imperfect, and more or less difficult, while each effort to secure right action increases the facility of so doing. We see that, owing to this principle, every act of obedience to law makes such a course easier. The intellect, the susceptibilities, the will, all come under this benign influence. Habit may so diminish the difficulty of self‐denial for our own good that the pain entirely ceases; and self‐sacrifice for the good of others may so develop benevolence and generate a habit that it will become pleasure without pain. There are those even in this world, who have so attained this capacity of living in the life of those around them, that the happiness of others becomes their own, so that there is even less pain in self‐denial for the good of others than for that of self. When this habit of mind is attained by all, the happiness of the commonwealth will become the portion of each individual, and thus be multiplied to an inconceivable extent. CHAPTER XX. ADDITIONAL PROOF OF THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. We have presented the “nature” of mind as the chief evidence of the grand design of its Creator in forming all things, and thus also presented the proof of his perfect wisdom, benevolence, and rectitude. We now will trace the evidences of the same beneficent design in the nature of all social and material organizations.