negative, the evidence arising as well from what they do, as from what they abstain from doing, that the organic processes are, and are intended to be, sources of enjoyment. But the production of pleasure, commencing at this the lowest point of conscious existence, increases with the progressive advancement of organization and function. The appetite for food, and the voluntary actions dependent upon it, may be considered as the first advancement beyond a process purely organic. The function by which new matter is introduced into the system and converted into nutriment, is partly an animal and partly an organic operation. The animal part of it consists of the sensations of hunger and thirst, by which we are taught when the wants of the system require a fresh supply of aliment, together with the voluntary actions by which the aliment is introduced into the system. The organic part of the function consists of the changes which the aliment undergoes after its introduction into the system, by which it is converted into nutriment. Sensations always of a pleasurable nature arise indirectly in the manner already explained, from the due performance of the organic part of the function; but pleasure is also directly produced by the performance of the animal part of it. Wholesome food is grateful; the satisfaction of the appetite for food is pleasurable. Food is necessary to the support of life; but it is not indispensable to the maintenance of life that food should be agreeable. Appetite there must be, that food may be eaten; but the act of eating might have been secured without connecting it with pleasure. Pleasure, however, is connected with it, first directly, by the gratefulness of food, and secondly indirectly, by the due digestion of the food. And the annexation of pleasure in this twofold mode to the performance of the function of nutrition is another case of the gratuitous bestowment of pleasure; another instance in which pleasure is communicated for its own sake, and rested in as an ultimate object. Pleasures of this class are sometimes called low; they are comparatively low; but they are not the less pleasures, because they are exceeded in value by pleasures of a nobler nature. Man may regard them with comparative indifference, because he is endowed with faculties which afford him gratifications superior in kind and larger in amount; but it is no mark of wisdom to despise and neglect even these: for they are annexed to the exercise of a function which is the first to exalt us above a merely organic existence; they are the first pleasures of which, considered merely as sentient creatures, we are susceptible; they amount in the aggregate to an immense sum; and they mark the depth in our nature in which are laid the fountains of enjoyment.