[Footnote: _Thy potent acts, Volition_, l. 435. It was before observed, how much the superior accuracy of our sense of touch contributes to increase our knowledge; but it is the greater energy and activity of the power of volition, that marks mankind, and has given them the empire of the world. There is a criterion by which we may distinguish our voluntary acts or thoughts from those that are excited by our sensations: "The former are always employed about the means to acquire pleasurable objects, or to avoid painful ones; while the latter are employed about the possession of those that are already in our power." The ideas and actions of brutes, like those of children, are almost perpetually produced by their present pleasures or their present pains; and they seldom busy themselves about the _means_ of procuring future bliss, or of avoiding future misery. Whilst the acquiring of languages, the making of tools, and the labouring for money, which are all only the _means_ of procuring pleasure; and the praying to the Deity, as another means to procure happiness, are characteristic of human nature.] "Unenvied eminence, in Nature's plan Rise the reflective faculties of Man! Labour to Rest the thinking Few prefer! Know but to mourn! and reason but to err!-- In Eden's groves, the cradle of the world, Bloom'd a fair tree with mystic flowers unfurl'd; 450 On bending branches, as aloft it sprung, Forbid to taste, the fruit of KNOWLEDGE hung; Flow'd with sweet Innocence the tranquil hours, And Love and Beauty warm'd the blissful bowers. Till our deluded Parents pluck'd, erelong, The tempting fruit, and gather'd Right and Wrong; Whence Good and Evil, as in trains they pass, Reflection imaged on her polish'd glass; And Conscience felt, for blood by Hunger spilt, The pains of shame, of sympathy, and guilt! 460 [Footnote: _And gather'd Right and Wrong_, l. 456. Some philosophers have believed that the acquisition of knowledge diminishes the happiness of the possessor; an opinion which seems to have been inculcated by the history of our first parents, who are said to have become miserable from eating of the tree of knowledge. But as the foresight and the power of mankind are much increased by their voluntary exertions in the acquirement of knowledge, they may undoubtedly avoid many sources of evil, and procure many sources of good; and yet possess the pleasures of sense, or of imagination, as extensively as the brute or the savage.]