xvm A DOUBTFUL BOON 213 



not man's madness turn it to his own injury ! As it 

 is, the remark may be applied to the winds which 

 was commonly made regarding Caesar the Elder 

 (Julius), as recorded by Titus Livius (Livy) ; it was 

 doubtful whether his birth was a blessing or a 

 curse to the state. In like manner all the useful 

 and necessary services performed by the winds can- 

 not outweigh the devices which man's madness has 

 through them framed for his own destruction. But 4 

 they do not cease to be inherently good, even 

 though, through fault of those who degrade their 

 use, they are turned to instruments of harm. 

 Surely Providence and God, the great Disposer of 

 the world, had a beneficent aim in establishing the 

 winds, and diffusing them on every side, to wit, 

 that the atmosphere might be kept in motion 

 by them, that no part of the world should become 

 unsightly through inactivity. His object was not 

 that we might man our fleet with armed soldiers to 

 seize every quarter of the main, and that we might 

 go in search of foes either in or beyond the sea. 

 What frenzy goads us on, and matches us in strife 

 for our mutual destruction? We spread the sails 5 

 to the winds to go in quest of war, and we run 

 risks of sea for the sake of meeting risks of battle ! 

 We tempt the uncertainty of fortune, the force of 

 tempests that no human effort can overcome, death 

 without hope of burial. The prize would not be 

 worth the toil if the voyage conducted us to 

 peace. As it is, when we have passed so many 

 hidden rocks and hidden shoals of a treacherous 

 sea ; when we have escaped the billows that rise 

 like mountains above us, into which the raging wind 

 forces all voyagers ; when we have passed through 6 

 days enveloped in mist, and nights rendered still 



