272 PURPOSE AND GENERAL CONDITION OF 



gravitation, all moveable things, our own bodies included, are 

 kept stable on the surface of the earth. But when it chances 

 that the playful boy loses his hold (we shall say) of the branch 

 of a tree, and has no solid support immediately below, the law 

 of gravitation unrelentingly pulls him to the ground, and thus 

 he is hurt. Now it was not a primary object of gravitation 

 to injure boys ; but gravitation could not but operate in the 

 circumstances, its nature being to be universal and invariable. 

 The evil is, therefore, only a casual exception from something 

 in the main good. 



The same explanation applies to even the most conspicuous 

 of the evils which afflict society. War, it may be said, and 

 said truly, is a tremendous example of evil, in the misery, 

 hardship, waste of human life, and mis-spending of human 

 energies, which it occasions. But what is it that produces 

 war ? Certain tendencies of human nature ; as keen assertion 

 of a supposed right, resentment of supposed injury, acquisitive- 

 ness, desire of admiration, combativeness, or mere love of ex- 

 citement. All of these are tendencies which every day, in a 

 legitimate extent of action, produce great and indispensable 

 benefits to us. Man would be a tame, indolent, unserviceable 

 being without them, and his fate would be starvation. War, 

 then, huge evil though it be, is, after all, but the exceptive 

 case, a casual misdirection of properties and powers essentially 

 good. God has given us the tendencies for a benevolent pur- 

 pose. He has only not laid down any absolute obstruction to 

 our misuse of them. That were an arrangement of a kind 

 which he has nowhere made. But he has established many 

 laws in our nature which tend to lessen the frequency and 

 destructiveness of these abuses. Our reason comes to see that 

 war is purely an evil, even to the conqueror. Benevolence in- 

 terposes to make its ravages less mischievous to human comfort, 

 and less destructive to human life. Men begin to find that 

 their more active powers can be exercised with equal gratifica- 

 tion on legitimate objects ; for example, in overcoming the 

 natural difficulties of their path through life, or in a generous 

 spirit of emulation in a line of duty beneficial to themselves 

 and their fellow-creatures. Thus, war at length shrinks into 

 a comparatively narrow compass, though there certainly is no 

 reason to suppose that it will be at any early period, if ever, 

 altogether dispensed with, while man's constitution remains 

 as it is. In considering an evil of this kind, we must not 

 limit our view to our own or any past time. Placed upon the 



