going of these occurrences stands in no rational connection will the required means of subsistence of the total number of cravings: the outcome of which will ever be the starving and spoiling of some, and the surfeit of others. Every moment in the life of a human being causes some polypusarus of his character to grow, others to wither, in correspondence with the sustenance which the moment may or may not supply. Our experiences, as previously mentioned, are, in this sense, all means of subsistence, but scattered about with a reckless land, without discriminating between the hungry and the glutted ones. In consequence of this accidental sustenance of the parts, the whole full-grown polypus will be something just as accidental as its growth. To express it more clearly, suppose a craving has reached that stage at which it demands gratification,— or exercise of power, or a discharge of the same, or saturation of a vacuum, —all this is metaphorical language—then it examines every occurrence of the day with a view to its most profitable employment for its own purpose; whether we may be walking or resting, feeling annoyed or reading, speaking, fighting or exulting, the craving in its thirst watches, so to speak, every condition which we may enter upon and, as a rule, finds nothing for itself and has to wait and go on thirsting: after a little while it grows faint, and after a few more days or months of non-gratification, it withers like a plant without rain. Perhaps this cruelty of chance would even be more strikingly conspicuous if all cravings were as thorough-going as hunger, which does
