OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 267 



consoling effect. Suppose, for instance, that, from a defect 

 in the power of development in a mother, her offspring is 

 ushered into the world destitute of some of the most useful 

 members, or blind, or deaf, or of imperfect intellect, there is 

 ever to be found in the parents and other relatives, and in the 

 surrounding public, a sympathy with the sufferer, which 

 tends to make up for the deficiency, so that he usually is in 

 the long run not much a loser. Indeed, the benevolence im- 

 planted in our nature seems to be an arrangement having for 

 one of its principal objects to cause us, by sympathy and 

 active aid, to remedy the evils unavoidably suffered by our 

 fellow -creatures in the course of the operation of the other 

 natural laws. And even in the sufferer himself, it is often 

 found that a defect in one point is made up for by an extra 

 power in another. The blind come to have a sense of touch 

 much more acute than those who see. Persons born without 

 hands have been known to acquire a power of using their 

 feet for a number of the principal offices usually served by 

 that member. I need hardly say how remarkably fatuity is 

 compensated by the more than usual regard paid to the 

 children born with it by their parents, and the zeal which 

 others usually feel to protect and succour such persons. In 

 short, we never see evil of any kind take place where there is 

 not some remedy or compensating principle ready to interfere 

 for its alleviation. And there can be no doubt that in this 

 manner suffering of all kinds is very much relieved. 



We may, then, regard the globes of space as theatres de- 

 signed for the residence of animated sentient beings, placed 

 there with this as their first and most obvious purpose to be 

 sensible of enjoyments from the exercise of their faculties in 

 relation to external things. The faculties of the various 

 species are very different, but the happiness of each depends 

 on the harmony there may be between its particular faculties 

 and its particular circumstances. For instance, place the 

 small-brained sheep or ox in a good pasture, and it fully 

 enjoys this harmony of relation ; but man, having many more 

 faculties, cannot be thus contented. Besides having a suffi- 

 ciency of food and bodily comfort, he must have entertain- 



