ink it prudent to defer flying to this
disagreeable refuge, till they have no relish left for any thing else.
Do they forget, that to perform this great business well requires all
the strength of their youth, and all the vigour of their unimpaired
capacities? To confirm this assertion, they may observe how much the
slightest indisposition, even in the most active season of life,
disorders every faculty, and disqualifies them for attending to the most
ordinary affairs: and then let them reflect how little able they will be
to transact the most important of all business, in the moment of
excruciating pain, or in the day of universal debility.

WHEN the senses are palled with excessive gratification; when the eye
is tired with seeing, and the ear with hearing; when the spirits are so
sunk, that the _grasshopper is become a burthen_, how shall the blunted
apprehension be capable of understanding a new science, or the worn-out
heart be able to relish a new pleasure?

TO put off religion till we have lost all taste for amusement; to refuse
listening to the "voice of the charmer," till our enfeebled organs can
no longer listen to the voice of "singing men and singing women," and
not to devote our days to heaven till we have "no pleasure in them"
ourselves, is but an ungracious offering. And it is a wretched sacrifice
to the God of heaven, to present him with the remnants of decayed
appetites, and the leavings of extinguished passions.

MISCELLANEOUS
OBSERVATIONS
ON
GENIUS, TASTE, GOOD
SENSE, &c.[8]

GOOD _sense_ is as different from _genius_ as perception is from
invention; yet, though distinct qualities, they frequently subsist
together. It is altogether opposite to _wit_, but by no means
inconsistent with it. It is not science, for there is such a thing as
unlettered good sense; yet, though it is neither wit, learning, nor
genius, it is a substitute for each, where they do not exist, and the
perfection of all where they do.

Good sense is so far from deserving the appellation of _common sense_,
by which it is frequently called, that it is perhaps one of the rarest
qualities of the human mind. If, indeed, this name is given it in
respect to its peculiar suitableness to the purposes of common life,
there is great propriety in it. Good sense appears to differ from taste
in this, that taste is an instantaneous decision of the mind, a sudden
relish of what is beautiful, or disgust at what is defective, in an
obje