An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Intellectual Powers.

First, then, in reference to the earliest exercise of mind in sensation. The eye might have been so made that light would inflict pain, and the ear so that sound would cause only discomfort. And so of all the other senses.

But the condition of a well-formed, healthy infant [pg 109] is a most striking illustration of the adaptation of the senses to receive enjoyment. Who could gaze on the countenance of such a little one, as its various senses are called into exercise without such a conviction? The delight manifested as the light attracts the eye, or as pleasant sounds charm the ear, or as the limpid nourishment gratifies its taste, or as gentle motion and soft fondlings soothe the nerves of touch, all testify to the benevolent design of its Maker.

Next come the pleasures of perception as the infant gradually observes the qualities of the various objects around, and slowly learns to distinguish its mother and its playthings from the confused mass of forms and colors. Then comes the gentle curiosity as it watches the movement of its own limbs, and finally discovers that its own volitions move its tiny fingers, while the grand idea that it is itself a cause is gradually introduced.

Next come the varied intellectual pleasures as the several powers are exercised in connection with the animate and material world around, in acquiring the meaning of words, and in imitating the sounds and use of language. The adult, in toiling over the dry lexicon, little realizes the pleasure with which the little one is daily acquiring the philosophy, grammar, and vocabulary of its mother tongue.

A child who can not understand a single complete sentence, or speak an intelligible phrase, will sit and listen with long-continued delight to the simple enunciation of words, each one of which presents a picture to his mind of a dog, a cat, a cow, a horse, a whip, a ride, and many other objects and scenes that have given pleasure in the past; while the single words, [pg 110] without any sentences, bring back, not only vivid conceptions of these objects, but a part of the enjoyment with which they have been connected.

Then, as years pass by, the intellect more and more administers pleasure, while the reasoning powers are developed, the taste cultivated, the imagination exercised, the judgment employed, and the memory stored with treasures for future enjoyment.

In the proper and temperate use of the intellectual powers, there is a constant experience of placid satisfaction, or of agreeable and often of delightful emotions, while no one of these faculties is productive of pain, except in violating the laws of the mental constitution.