A MORAL GOVERNOR. 259 



the eye ; and we can hardly doubt that these 

 faculties were bestowed on man to further the 

 best interests of his being. The sense of beauty 

 both animates and refines his domestic tenden- 

 cies ; the love of art is a powerful instrument for 

 raising him above the mere cravings and satis- 

 factions of his animal nature ; the expansion of 

 mind which rises in us at the sight of the starry 

 sky, the cloud-capt mountain, the boundless 

 ocean, seems intended to direct our thoughts by 

 an impressive though indefinite feeling, to the 

 Infinite Author of All. But if these faculties be 

 thus part of the scheme of man's inner being, 

 given him by a good and wise creator, can we 

 suppose that this creator was any other than 

 the creator also of those visual organs, without 

 which the faculties could have no operation and 

 no existence? As clearly as light and the eye 

 are the work of the same author, so clearly also 

 do our capacities for the most exalted visual 

 pleasures, and the feelings flowing from them, 

 proceed from the same Divine Hand, by which 

 the mechanism of light was constructed. 



3. The creator of the earth must be conceived 

 to be the author also of all those qualities in the 

 soil, chemical and whatever else, by which it 

 supports vegetable life, under all the modifica- 

 tions of natural and artificial condition. Among 

 the attributes which the earth thus possesses, 

 there are some which seem to have an especial 



