194 



PURPOSE AND GENERAL, CONDITIOlf 



Thua it is that the innocence of the party suffering for 

 the faults of a parent, or of any other person or set of 

 persons, is evidently a consideration quite apart from that 

 suffering. 



It is clear, moreover, from the whole scope of the natu 

 ral laws, that the individual, as far as the present sphere 

 of being is concerned, is to the Author of Nature a con- 

 sideration of inferior moment. Everywhere we see the 

 arrangements for the species perfect ; the individual is 

 left, as it were, to take his chance amidst the mSlee of 

 the various laws affecting him. If he be found inferi- 

 orly endowed, or ill befalls him, there was at least no 

 partiality against him. The system has the fairness of a 

 lottery, in which every one has the like chance of draw- 

 ing a prize. 



Yet it is also to be observed that few evils are alto- 

 gether unmixed. God, contemplating apparently the 

 unbending action of his great laws, has established others 

 which appear to be designed to have a compensating, a 

 repairing, and a 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 is in the long run not much 

 the loser. Indeed, the benevolence implanted in our na- 

 ture 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 nat 

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

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

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

 touch much more acute than those who see. Person? 

 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 pro- 

 tect and succor such persons. In short, we never see 

 evil of any kind take place where there is not some 



