OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 



189 



tween the number of beings, and the means of supporting 

 them, is only on the footing of general law. There may 

 be occasional discrepancies between the laws operating 

 for the multiplication of individuals and the laws opera- 

 ting to supply them with the means of subsistence, and 

 evils will be endured in consequence, even in our own 

 highly favored species. But against all these evils, and 

 against those numberless vexations which have arisen in 

 all ages from the attachment of the sexes, place the vast 

 amount of happiness which is derived from that source — 

 the basis of the whole circle of the domestic affections, 

 the sweetening principle of life, the prompter of all our 

 most generous feelings, and even of our most virtuous 

 resolves — and every ill that can be traced to it is but as 

 dust in the balance. And here, also, we must be on our 

 guard against judging from what we see in the world at a 

 particular era. As reason and the higher sentiments of 

 man's nature increase in force, this passion is put under 

 better regulation, so as to lessen many of the evils con- 

 nected with it. The civilized man is more able to give 

 it due centrol ; his attachments are less the result of im- 

 pulse ; he studies more the weal of his partner and off- 

 spring. There are even some of the resentful feelings 

 connected in early society with love, such as hatred of 

 successful rivalry, and jealousy, which almost disappear 

 in an advanced stage of civilization. The evils spring- 

 ing, in our own species at least, from this passion may 

 therefore be an exception mainly peculiar to a particular 

 term of the world's progress, and which may be expected 

 to decrease greatly in amount. 



With respect, again, to disease, so prolific a cause of 

 suffering to man, the human constitution is merely a 

 complicated but regular process in electro-chemistry, 

 which goes on well, and is a source of continual gratifi- 

 cation, so long as nothing occurs to interfere with it in- 

 juriously, but which is liable every moment to be de- 

 ranged by various external agencies, when it becomes a 

 source of pain, and, if the injury be severe, ceases to be 

 capable of retaining life. It may be readily admitted 

 that the evils experienced in this way are very great ; 

 but, after all, such experiences are no more than occa- 

 sional, and not necessarily frequent — exceptions from a 

 general rule of which the direct action is to confer hap- 

 piness. The human constitution might have been made. 



