God, as
well as the victim who struggles to escape his doom? And does the eagle
obey the law of God in pouncing on the dove, and the dove in seeking to
evade its talons? Is every tendency the law of God? If it be the will of
God that the powerful tendencies of some should neutralize the feebler
tendencies of others, is not might, right? And if might be right, why
murmur at anything that is? For everything that is, exists by virtue of
its might: and every thing that perishes, perishes in virtue of its
weakness. Are you not sanctioning the doctrine of the Optimist, and
saying with Pope,

"In spite of sense, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear--whatever _is_, is RIGHT."

"Whatever is, _is_ right," says another. "It is the result of eternal
wisdom, of almighty power, and infinite love. God is all perfect, and He
is all in all. A perfect God could have nothing short of a perfect
object in all His works, a perfect motive prompting Him, a perfect rule
to guide Him; and, as the author of all existence, a perfect material
out of which to make the creatures of His love. All is perfect. It is
men's own imperfection that makes them think otherwise." "All is
perfect," you say, "yet man is _imperfect_; and his imperfection makes
him think other things imperfect. All is perfect, yet something is
imperfect; and that something is the most perfect or the least imperfect
creature in existence." "Imperfection itself is a part of perfection,"
says the Optimist. "As discords are necessary to the highest musical
compositions; so imperfection is necessary to the highest perfection."

"The most difficult point of all," says a philosophical Unitarian, "is
that of necessity. Every thing must have a cause. Man's actions are the
result of physical causes; yet man is consciously free." "Man is no more
free than the planets," says an Atheist. "He _acts_ freely, as the
planets do,--that is, he acts in harmony with his tendencies,--in
harmony with the causes of his actions,--the causes of his actions cause
them by causing him to will them, by inclining him to do them; and the
causes of planetary action produce that action in the same way: but the
freedom and the necessity are the same in the one case as in the other.
All is free, and all is bound. The chain is infinite, eternal, and
almighty. The difference between man and a planet is, that man is
conscious of his acts, and the planet is not." "Then duty is a dream,"
said a third,