OF THE ANIMATED CREATION. 



197 



'tiry to those other portions of the nation, and the second 

 a reactive injury to the injurers, making their guilt their 

 punishment. And so when one nation commits an ag- 

 gression upon the property or rights of another, or even 

 pursues towards it a sordid or ungracious policy, the 

 effects are sure to be redoubled evil from the offended 

 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 realize 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 en- 

 deavor 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 unfolded 

 does not imply the most perfect conceivable love or regard 

 on the part of the Deity towards his creatures. Consti- 

 tuted 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 feel that this is a dreary view of the Divine 

 economy ; and before we have looked further, 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 in- 

 dividual as he thinks meet ; so that, when sorrow comes 

 to us, we shall have at least the consolation of believing 

 that it is imposed by a Father who loves us, and who seeks 

 by these means to accomplish our ultimate good. Now, 

 in the first place, if this be an untrue notion of the Deity 

 and his ways, it can be of no real benefit to us ; and in 

 the second, it is proper to inquire if there be necessarily in 

 the doctrine of natural law any peculiarity calculated 

 materially to affect our hitherto supposed relation to the 

 Deity. It may be that, while we are committed to take 

 our chance in a natural system of undeviating operation, 

 and are left with apparent ruthlessness to endure the con* 

 sequences of every collision into which we knowingly or 



