OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 263 



to see measures devised and adopted for producing a similar 

 improvement of infant life throughout the world at large. 



In this part of our subject, the most difficult point cer- 

 tainly lies in those occurrences of disease where the afflicted 

 individual has been in no degree concerned in bringing the 

 visitation upon himself. Daily experience shows us infec- 

 tious disease arising in a place where the natural laws in 

 respect of cleanliness are neglected, and then spreading into 

 regions where there is no blame of this kind. We then see 

 the innocent suffering equally with those who may be called 

 the guilty. Nay, the benevolent physician who comes to 

 succour the miserable beings whose error may have caused 

 the mischief, is sometimes seen to fall a victim to it, while 

 many of his patients recover. We are also only too familiar 

 with the transmission of diseases from erring parents to inno- 

 cent children, who accordingly suffer, and perhaps die pre- 

 maturely, as it were for the sins of others. After all, how- 

 ever painful such cases may be in contemplation, they cannot 

 be regarded in any other light than as exceptions from ar- 

 rangements, the general working of which is beneficial. 



With regard to the innocence of the suffering parties, 

 there is one important consideration which is pressed upon 

 us from many quarters namely, that moral conditions have 

 not the least concern in the working of the physical laws. 

 These arrangements proceed with an entire independence 

 of all such conditions, and desirably so, for otherwise there 

 could be no certain dependence placed upon them. Thus it 

 may happen that two persons ascending a piece of scaffolding, 

 the one a virtuous, the other a vicious man, the former, being 

 the less cautious of the two, ventures upon an insecure place, 

 falls, and is killed, while the other, choosing a better footing, 

 remains uninjured. It is not in what we can conceive of the 

 nature of things, that there should be a special exemption 

 from the ordinary laws of matter, to save this virtuous man. 

 So it might be that, of two physicians, attending fever cases, 

 in a mean part of a large city, the one, an excellent citizen, 

 may stand in such a position with respect to the beds of the 



