Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/403

 When the mind has been awakened into activity by the passions, and the wants of the body, intellectual wants arise; and the desire of knowledge, and the impatience under ignorance, form a new and important class of excitements. Every part of nature seems peculiarly calculated to furnish stimulants to mental exertion of this kind, and to offer inexhaustible food for the most unremitted inquiry. Our immortal Bard says of Cleopatra—


 * "Custom cannot stale
 * Her infinite variety."

The expression, when applied to any one object, may be considered as a poetical amplification, but it is accurately true when applied to nature. Infinite variety, seems, indeed, eminently her characteristic feature. The shades that are here and there blended in the picture, give