Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/153

Rh Yet I much fear that this idea of mental advantage, accruing from what some people call the loss of time in sleep, will hardly be received by those who make the all of life and its enjoyments to consist in the natural activities of the intellectual faculty; and who are thus led to suppose, that their career in the way of bliss would be far more rapid, was it not impeded by the temporary suspension imposed on those activities by the nightly repose of the body.

But here arises a most important question, to which every man is bound to give a serious answer who wishes to become acquainted with himself; and thus with the true quality, character, and tendencies of his own natural intellectual activities.—The question, I say, is—do these activities constitute the whole of man’s life and enjoyments? Rather, if not at times suspended and checked, would they not finally tend to destroy all life, properly so called, and instead of promoting bliss, plunge man into very depth of woe and misery?

I am speaking here, you will observe, of intellectual activities merely natural, or of such as have no higher origin and end than selfish and worldly gain and glory; and not of those which are grounded in the pure love of and man, and directed by the wisdom of such love; for from these latter activities, it is plain, we have