  The Appetites are cravings of the body, adapted, and undoubtedly designed, to secure the continued life of the individual and the preservation of the species. They are common to man with the lower orders of animals, with this difference, that in man they may be controlled, directed, modified, in part suppressed, while in brutes they are uncontrollable, and always tend to the same modes of gratification. Appetite is intermittent. When gratified, it ceases for a time, and is renewed for the same person nearly at the same intervals, and under similar circumstances. It is, while it lasts, an uneasy, even a painful sensation, and therefore demands prompt relief, and leads [pg 011] The appetites are essential to the well-being of men, individually and collectively. Were it not for the pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of gratifying them, both indolence and engrossing industry would draw off the attention of men from their bodily needs; nourishment would be taken irregularly, and with little reference to quality; and one would often become aware of his neglect only too late to arrest its consequences. A similar remark applies to the appetite designed to secure the preservation of the species. But for this, it may be doubted whether men would willingly take upon themselves the cares, labors, responsibilities, and contingent disappointments and sorrows involved in the rearing of children. In a life conformed to nature, hunger and thirst recur only when the body actually needs the supply which they crave. But stimulating food, by the reaction that follows strong excitement of any portion of the nervous system, may create hunger when there is no need of food, and in like manner not only intoxicating, but highly stimulating liquids, may occasion an excessive, morbid, and injurious thirst. Appetite is modified by habit. There is hardly any substance so offensive that it may not by use become agreeable, then an object of desire, and, at length, of intense craving. [pg 012]The craving for repose and that for muscular action, though not classed among the appetites, have all their characteristics, and serve similar ends in the economy of human life. After a certain period of activity, rest is felt as a bodily necessity, as food is, after long fasting; and in like manner, when the wearied muscles have had their due repose, there is an irresistible tendency to their exercise, without reference to any special employment or recreation. It is by the alternation of these tendencies that the active and industrious are saved from the ruinous consequences of overtasked limbs or brain, and that the indolent are urged to the reluctant activity without which health and life itself would be sacrificed. The appetites, being mere bodily impulses, and being all liable to excess or misdirection, need the control of the will, and of the principles of action by which the will is determined and regulated. |
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