174 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



position none can swerve their own allotted rela- 

 tion to surrounding objects none can disturb none, 

 except man. But man, as I hope to prove to you 

 hereafter, has removed himself from his natural 

 position has broken down his natural relation to 

 the external world ; and so brought himself within 

 the sphere of the operation of causes injurious to 

 his well-being, which could not otherwise have 

 reached him. 



All planetary phenomena, as we have just seen, 

 as well as those of brute life, of chemistry, of vege- 

 table^ life, mechanics, and physics in general, owe 

 their infallibility to the infallibility of the laws which 

 sustain them : and I think it cannot be doubted, 

 that the fallibility which distinguishes the system of 

 man from all others has its origin in the fallibility 

 of the laws on which it depends for support, or 

 rather the fallibility of that conduct and mode of 

 existence on which those laws depend for their 

 perfect or imperfect fulfilment. If the immutable 

 law of gravitation which, as it were, bridles the 

 planets, guiding- and restraining each in its proper 

 path had depended for its energy and constancy 

 upon the caprice of men, is it not easily conceiv- 

 able nay, is it not absolutely certain that the 

 system of the planets would have been liable to as 



