I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain and evil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear his own share with more courage and submission; and will, at any rate, view with suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the Divine government, which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake, - to be corrected by and by. On the other hand, the predominance of happiness among living things - their lavish beauty - the secret and wonderful harmony which pervades them all, from the highest to the lowest, are equally striking refutations of that modern Manichean doctrine, which exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked with many tears, for mere utilitarian ends. There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life, - and that is, by its influence over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources of that pleasure which is derivable from beauty.

Philosophy·Nature·Balance·Beauty·Happiness·Suffering