This generalization, with which we are all familiar in our bodily
experiences, and which our daily language recognizes as true of
the mind as a whole, is equally true of each mental power, from
the simplest of the senses to the most complex of the sentiments.
If we hold a flower to the nose for long, we become insensible to
its scent. We say of a very brilliant flash of lightning that it
blinds us; which means that our eyes have for a time lost their
ability to appreciate light. After eating a quantity of honey, we
are apt to think our tea is without sugar. The phrase "a deafening
roar," implies that men find a very loud sound temporarily
incapacitates them for hearing faint ones. To a hand which has
for some time carried a heavy body, small bodies afterwards lifted
seem to have lost their weight. Now, the truth at once recognized
in these, its extreme manifestations, may be traced throughout.
It may be shown that alike in the reflective faculties, in the
imagination, in the perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous,
the sublime, in the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental
powers, however we may classify them-action exhausts; and that in
proportion as the action is violent, the subsequent prostration is
great.
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