y and properties, and exerting their
abilities according to the means they possess, till compelled to yield
to a superior power, and learn to submit to the laws which operate in
every department of this mutable world.

_Every_ thing _acts_ according to the ability God has bestowed upon it;
and man can do no more. He has authority over all things on earth, and
yet he is made to depend upon all. His authority extends no farther than
a privilege, under wholesome restrictions, of making the whole
subservient to his real good. When he goes beyond this, he usurps a
power which belongs not to him, and the destruction of his happiness
pays the forfeit of his imprudence. The injured power rises triumphant
over the aggressor, and the glory of God's government, in the righteous
and immediate execution of his laws, is clearly revealed. So long as man
obeys the laws which regulate health, observes temperance in all things,
uses the things of this world as not abusing them, he is at rest, he is
blessed, he is happy: but no sooner has he violated heaven's law than he
becomes the slave, and the servant assumes the master. But I am
digressing. I would gladly follow this subject further, but I shall go
beyond my limits, and, it may be, your patience.

I would insist, however, on the facts to which your attention has been
given, for it is impossible, as I have before contended, to use language
correctly without a knowledge of the things and ideas it is employed to
represent.

Grovelling, indeed, must be the mind which will not trace the sublime
exhibitions of Divine power and skill in all the operations of nature;
and false must be that theory which teaches the young mind to think and
speak of neutrality as attached to things which do exist. As low and
debasing as the speculations of the schoolmen were, they gave to things
which they conceived to be incapable of action, a principle which they
called "_vis inertiae_," or, _power to lie still_. Shall our systems of
instruction descend below them, throw an insurmountable barrier in the
way of human improvement, and teach the false principles that actions
can exist without an effect, or that there is a class of words which
"express neither action or passion." Such a theory is at war with the
first principles of philosophy, and denies that "like causes produce
like effects."

The ablest minds have never been able to explain the foundation of a
"neuter verb," or to find a single word, with