MAN'S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. 289 



occupying a vast space, but yet disposed at dis- 

 tances before which their own dimensions shrink 

 into insignificance ; all governed by one law, 

 yet this law so concentrating its operation on 

 each system, that each proceeds as if there were 

 no other, and so regulating its own effects that 

 perpetual change produces permanent uniformity. 

 This is the kind of harmonious relation which we 

 perceive in that part of the universe, the me- 

 chanical part namely, the laws of which are best 

 known to us. In other provinces, where our 

 knowledge is more imperfect, we can see glimpses 

 of a similar vastness of combination, producing, 

 by its very nature, completeness of detail. Any 

 analogy by which we can extend such views to 

 the moral world, must be of a very wide and 

 indefinite kind ; yet the contemplation of this 

 admirable relation of the arrangements of the 

 physical creation, and the perfect working of 

 their laws, is well calculated to give us confidence 

 in a similar beauty and perfection in the arrange- 

 ments by which our moral relations are directed, 

 our higher powers and hopes unfolded. We may 

 readily believe that there is, in this part of the 

 creation also, an order, a subordination of some 

 relation to others, which may remove all difficulty 

 arising from the vast multitude of moral agents 

 and actions, and make it possible that the super- 

 intendence of the moral world shall be directed 

 with as exact a tendency to moral good, as that 



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