modification of the principle, arising out of
the operation of habit. Impressions made upon us are greatest when they
are absolutely new: after repetition they all lose something of their
power; although, by remission and alternative, the causes of pleasure
and pain have still a very considerable efficacy. Many of the
consequences of this great fact are sufficiently acknowledged, or, if
they are not, it is from other causes than our ignorance. The weakness
is moral, rather than intellectual, that makes us expect that the first
flush of a great pleasure, a newly-attained joy or success, will
continue unabated. The poor man, probably, does not overrate the
gratification of newly-attained wealth; what he fails to allow for is
the deadening effect of an unbroken experience of ease and plenty. The
author of "Romola" says of the hero and the heroine, in the early
moments of their affection, that they could not look forward to a time
when their kisses should be common things. So it is with the attainment
of all great objects of pursuit: the first access of good fortune may
not disappoint us; but as we are more and more removed from the state of
privation, as the memory of the prior experience fades away, so does the
vividness of the present enjoyment. It is the same with changes for the
worse: the agony of a great loss is at first overpowering; gradually,
however, the system accommodates itself to the new condition, and the
severity dies away. What is called on these occasions the "force of
custom" is the application of the law of Accommodation, or Relativity
modified by habit.

[RELATIVITY IN PLEASURES.]

It is a familiar experience of mankind, yet hard to realise upon mere
testimony, that the pleasures of rest, repose, retirement, are wholly
relative to foregone labour and toil; after the first shock of
transition, they are less and less felt, and can be renewed only after
a renewal of the contrasting experience. The description, in "Paradise
Lost," of the delicious repose of Adam and Eve in Eden is fallacious;
the poet credits them with an intensity of pleasure attainable only by
the brow-sweating labourer under the curse.

The delights of Knowledge are relative to previous Ignorance; for,
although the possession of knowledge is in many ways a lasting good, yet
the full intensity of the charm is felt only at the moment of passing
from mystery to explanation, from blankness of impression to
intellectual attainment. This