i8 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



and wildest manifestations of individual life, she 

 prepares the student to look for a goal even amidst 

 the erratic wanderings of mankind, and to believe 

 that history offers something more than an enter- 

 taining chaos a journal of a toilsome, tragi-comic 

 march nowhither. 



I cannot but think that he who finds a certain 

 proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in 

 the life of the very worms, will bear his own share 

 with more courage and submission ; and will, at any 

 rate, view with suspicion those weakly amiable 

 theories of the Divine government, which would have 

 us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake, to 

 be corrected by and by. On the other hand, the 

 predominance of happiness among living things 

 their lavish beauty the secret and wonderful 

 harmony which pervades them all, from the highest 

 to the lowest, are equally striking refutations of that 

 modern Manichean doctrine, which exhibits the world 

 as a slave-mill, worked with many tears, for mere 

 utilitarian ends. 



To a person uninstructed in natural history, his 

 country or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery 

 filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of 

 which have their faces turned to the wall. Teach 

 him something of natural history, and you place in 

 his hands a catalogue of those which are worth 

 turning round. Surely our innocent pleasures are 

 not so abundant in this life that we can afford to 

 despise this or any other source of them. We should 

 fear being banished for our neglect to that limbo 

 where the great Florentine tells us are those who, 

 during this life, " wept when they might be joyful." 



