lances deeds. We try to
persuade ourselves that these two work hand in hand. But in reality,
though the spirit will often glance towards the power, this last is as
completely ignorant of the other's existence as is the man weighing
coals in Northern Europe of the existence of his fellow weighing
diamonds in South Africa. We are constantly intruding our sense of
justice into this non-moral logic; and herein lies the source of most
of our errors.

10

And further, what right have we to complain of the indifference of the
universe, what right to declare it incomprehensible, and monstrous?
Why this surprise at an injustice in which we ourselves take so active
a part? It is true that there is no trace of justice to be found in
disease, accident, or most of the hazards of external life, which fall
indiscriminately on the good and the wicked, the hero and traitor, the
poisoner and sister of charity. But we are far too eager to include
under the title "Justice of the Universe" many a flagrant act that is
exclusively human, and infinitely more common and more destructive than
disease, the hurricane, or fire. I do not allude to war; it might be
urged that we attribute this rather to the will of the people or kings
than to Nature. But poverty, for instance, which we still rank with
irremediable ills such as shipwreck or plague; poverty, with all its
crushing sorrows and transmitted degeneration--how often may this be
ascribed to the injustice of the elements, and how often to the
injustice of our social condition, which is the crowning injustice of
man? Need we, at the sight of unmerited wretchedness, look to the
skies for a reason, as though a flash of lightning had caused it? Need
we seek an impenetrable, unfathomable judge? Is this region not our
own; are we not here in the best explored, best known portion of our
dominion; and is it not we who organise misery, we who spread it
abroad, as arbitrarily, from the moral point of view, as fire and
disease scatter destruction or suffering? Is it reasonable that we
should wonder at the sea's indifference to the soul-state of its
victims, when we who have a soul, the pre-eminent organ of justice, pay
no heed whatever to the innocence of the countless thousands whom we
ourselves sacrifice, who are our wretched victims? We choose to regard
as beyond our control, as a force of fatality, a force that rests
entirely within our own hands. But does this excuse us? Truly we a