within whom lies all life in potentiality, even
the ultimate goal, then let us consider why he
causes himself to suffer.

If pain is the result of uneven development,
of monstrous growths, of defective
advance at different points, why does man not
learn the lesson which this should teach him,
and take pains to develop equally?

It would seem to me as if the answer to
this question is that this is the very lesson
which the human race is engaged in learning.
Perhaps this may seem too bold a statement
to make in the face of ordinary thinking,
which either regards man as a creature of
chance dwelling in chaos, or as a soul bound
to the inexorable wheel of a tyrant's chariot
and hurried on either to heaven or to hell. But
such a mode of thought is after all but the
same as that of the child who regards his
parents as the final arbiters of his destinies,
and in fact the gods or demons of his universe.
As he grows he casts aside this idea, finding
that it is simply a question of coming of age,
and that he is himself the king of life like any
other man.

So it is with the human race. It is king of
its world, arbiter of its own destiny, and there
is none to say it nay. Who talk of Providence
and chance have not paused to think.

Destiny, the inevitable, does indeed exist
for the race and for the individual; but who
can ordain this save the man himself? There
is no clew in heaven or earth to the existence
of any ordainer other than the man who suffers
or enjoys that which is ordained. We know
so little of our own constitution, we are so
ignorant of our divine functions, that it is
impossible for us yet to know how much or
how little we are actually fate itself. But this
at all events we know,--that so far as any
provable perception goes, no clew to the
existence of an ordainer has yet been discovered;
whereas if we give but a very little
attention to the life about us in order to
observe the action of the man upon his own
future, we soon perceive this power as an
actual force in operation. It is visible, although
our range of vision is so very limited.

The man of the world, pure and simple,
is by far the best practical observer and
philosopher with regard to life, because he is
not blinded by any prejudices. He will be
found always to believe that as a man sows so
shall he reap. And this is so evidently true
when it is considered, that if one takes the
larger view, including all human life, it makes
intel