NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 2S1 



the property or rights of another, or even pursues 

 towards it a sordid or ungracious policy, the eftects are 

 sure to be redoubled evil from the oifended party. All 

 of these things are under laws which make the effects, on 

 a large range, absolutely certain; and an individual, a 

 party, a people, can no more act unjustly with safety, 

 than I could with safety place my leg in the track of a 

 coming wain, or attempt to fast thirty days. We have 

 been constituted on the principle of only being able to 

 realise happiness for ourselves when our fellow-creatures 

 are also happy ; we must therefore both do to others only 

 as we would have others to do to us, and endeavour to 

 promote their happiness as well as our own, in order to 

 find ourselves truly comfortable in this field of existence. 

 These are words which God speaks to us as truly through 

 his works, as if we heard them uttered in his own voice 

 from heaven. 



It will occur to every one, that the system here un- 

 folded does not imply the most perfect conceivable love 

 or regard on the part of the Deity towards his creatures. 

 Constituted as we are^ feeling how vain our efforts often 

 are to attain happiness or avoid calamity, and knowing 

 that much evil does unavoidably befall us from no fault 

 of ours, we are apt to think this a dreary view of the 

 Divine economy ; and before we have looked farther, we 

 might be tempted to say. Far rather let us cling to the 

 idea, so long received, that the Deity acts continually 

 for special occasions, and gives such directions to the 

 fate of each individual as he thinks meet ; so that, 

 when sorrow comes to us, we shall have at least the 

 consolation of beHeving that it is imposed by a Father 

 who loves us, and who seeks by these means to accom- 

 plish our ultimate good. Now, in the first place, if this 

 be an untrue notion of the Deity and his wavs, and that 



