reignty, rather than to the Divine equity-as an arbitrary infliction, rather than as the natural and righteous result of the infraction of laws by which God governs the world. Proximately, the evil results from the violation of natural laws; ultimately and efficiently it results from that omnipresent Being in whose will the entire scheme of things at first originated, by whom it is maintained in constant operation, and to whom it is always competent to touch the springs of human volition by influences unknown to material laws, though perfectly compatible with them, as well as with the moral freedom of the man, and even in order to it. Viewed as flowing from the operation of natural law, it is opposed to the ideas of chance and caprice; viewed as resulting from natural law, under the administration of a superintending Providence, it is equally opposed to blind necessity or fate. CHAPTER XIII. WELL-BEING. 1. THE ideas of obligation and law, developed in the two chapters immediately preceding, prepare us to expect, in harmony with another of our laws, "that man will be found to enjoy an amount of good or well-being proportioned to the discharge of his obligations." His nature necessarily expresses something of the Divine Nature. He is brought into existence in order to express it. He sustains relations adapted to elicit and receive the manifestation. And he is held under obligation to this effect. He cannot, therefore, fulfil the law of his being, without enjoying well-being. For, to manifest whatever his nature is calculated to exhibit of God, is to stand related, on one side, to the greatest of Beings, and on the other to the greatest of ends. Nor could he be supposed to be in any way deprived of his right to happiness while thus fulfilling the highest end of his existence, without the great end itself being, in so far, defeated. And if the nature of God be infinitely holy and happy, and His will be the dictate of His nature, then in proportion as man conforms to that will, his well-being rests on the immutable basis of the Divine nature. A regard to his own well-being, indeed, is not to be the supreme motive of man's obedience. His highest incentive is, as we have seen, to be derived from the highest object — a regard to the character and will of God. But it might be expected antecedent to experience, that, in the government of a perfect Being, the greatest good of the creature would be made coincident with the highest glory of the Creator. And as far as we know, or, according to the most enlarged views we can form of the Divine administration, it is so. 2. Viewing man's nature apart from his external relations, we may remark generally, that his well-being at any given moment, depends on the actual presence, the orderly development, and the due activity, of every essential part of his constitution. Let either of these conditions be wanting, and the derangement, or defective state of the whole, must be the inevitable consequence. Let the appetites be indulged beyond the appointed limits, and the higher faculties will exist comparatively in vain; every such indulgence brings him nearer to the level of the animal. Let them be restrained beyond a certain limit, and, even though the occasion be devotion itself, his moral and mental powers will share in the evil consequences, as well as his physical. Let his intellectual powers fail to be duly exercised, and in vain will the laws of the external universe exist, and even execute themselves upon him; they will convey no information to his mind; and, consequently, every other part of his nature will suffer. Let his sense of duty fail to be adequately exercised, and in vain will his relations to the external universe testify to him of the will of God. And thus every physical defect is an intellectual injury; and every intellectual injury a moral evil. On the other hand, let all the parts of his constitution be present, and, even if at any given moment, his subjective nature should be wrong, as to any of his objective relations, he will only need to perceive these relations in order to harmonize his affections and conduct with them; just as on awaking in the morning, the presence of light is all that is necessary to prepare him to adjust his movements to the surrounding objects. That is to say, no change of his constitution will be necessary. 3. Regarding his nature as successively existent, let all the conditions to which I have referred, be present from the first, and let them be subsequently maintained in due subordination, each would be found to keep pace with all the rest in a course of constant progression, to minister to their well-being, and to the happiness of the whole man. But let any of these conditions 66 be wanting, and a new view of the consequences appear. Man's nature, as we have seen, is continuous and accumulative; his character, at any one period of his existence, being the exact result of all that it has been through every preceding period. Many men fancy that the slight injuries done by each single act of intemperance are like the glomeration of moonbeams upon moonbeams — myriads will not amount to a positive value. Perhaps they are wrong, possibly every act - nay, every separate pulse or throb of intemperate sensation is numbered in our own after actions; reproduces itself in some future perplexity; comes back in some revisionary shape that injures the freedom of action for all men, and makes good men afflicted. At all events, it is an undeniable fact, that many a case of difficulty, which in apology for ourselves we very truly plead to be insur mountable by our existing energies, has borrowed its sting from previous acts or omissions of our own: it might not have been insurmountable, had we better cherished our physical resources." We accept this view as more than a speculation. "Physiology," says Liebig, "has sufficiently decisive grounds for the opinion, that every conception, every mental affection, is followed by changes in the chemical nature of the secreted fluid; that every thought, every sensation, is accompanied by a change in the composition of the substance of the brain." Whether we receive this statement as physiologically true or not, it is certain that, in the account of psychology, every mental movement has a real value. As a creature of memory, every thought which man voluntarily entertains will abide with him forever. If it be a thought in harmony with the Divine will, and he has acted in harmony with it, it will never cease to yield him good; if he have not so acted, it will never cease to reproach and condemn him. If it be an evil thought, and he have repented of it, and have not carried it out into action, it can yet never cease to be an occasion of regret. If he have not repented of it, it remains with him, in effect, as an ever-running fountain of pollution. How terrible the ordeal of having to meet the sinful thoughts of a long life of guilt! How fearful the prospect of having to confront them, not for an age, merely, or a million of ages, but to have the ordeal repeated through every point of endless duration! 4. Man's nature is progressive also. As a creature of habit, the repetition of a voluntary act produces a tendency to con * Animal Chemistry, p. 9. tinued repetition and diffusion. By the repetition of a virtuous act, moral power is gained; but as less moral power is required to perform that particular act, there is (as Dr. Wayland happily expresses it) a surplus to be expended in the performance of other virtuous acts. By the repetition of a vicious act, moral power is diminished; but as more moral power is required to resist the augmented power of the passions which prompt to the repetition of that particular act, the likelihood that it will be repeated is increased, as well as that the surplus force of the passions will be expended in the performance of other vicious acts. Thus, like an error admitted into the early stage of a calculation conducted by geometrical progression, and which goes on repeating and enlarging itself at every step of the reckoning, till the unit soon swells into millions, there is not merely a tendency in evil to perpetuate itself, and so to become unalterable, but to multiply itself with a rapidity which defies calculation. In estimating a virtuous action, then, we must not merely look at its immediate consequences - these may be the smallest part of the. advantage- but at the tendency to virtuous action ever after, which it includes and promotes. And in estimating a vicious action, we must look not merely at its direct effects, but (what may be much greater) at the tendency to vice which it brings with it. The immediate effects of an act of inebriety may be calculable; but if the act lead to the habit, the reckoning must include all the vicious courses which that act began to prepare the drunkard for. So that even if he be less answerable for the particular acts committed when intoxicated than he would have been had he been sober, the sum-total of his guilt is not thus diminished; there is only a transfer made of it to a different column of the reckoning-namely, to the course of immoderate indulgence, by which he placed himself in a state of moral defencelessness, and thus qualified himself for the perpetration of evil. In the same way, a man may pervert his judgment, and thus disqualify himself for believing the testimony of the gospel at the close of life, by having begun to yield to the force of his passions early in life. Now, even if he is less guilty for his disbelief under these circumstances than he would have been had he never so yielded, this does not lessen the sum-total of his guilt. He is still responsible, and ever will be, for the process by which he disqualified himself for receiving the testimony of his Maker. 5. From habit results character and its consolidation. By character is not to be understood original temperament, or con "As stitutional tendency. Such idiosyncracy may be closely related to it, but does not constitute it. On the contrary, character may overbear it, and be even formed in defiance of it. Character is the slow and conscious product of man's voluntary nature. a man thinketh in his heart so is he." It is that which identifies him with his moral self at different stages of his being; and hence, it is only on the supposition that his character is changed that he is said to lose his moral identity, and to become a "new creature." It discriminates him from all his fellow-beings, as one having "his own way." It places him in a distinctive relation to the government of God. And, as such, it asks for him finally "his own place." However much he may have first apparently resembled others, his character gradually becomes more and more unique. Like the organs of embryotic life, as soon as character becomes distinguishable, it is found to be specific. And this difference is not merely constant, but ever evolving. Like the slow deposit of an ever-flowing mountain stream, character is always acquiring a bolder outline, and firmer consistency. As a medium of mental vision, it sheds a more decided color on every object on which the mind looks. As a power of assimilation, it gradually ceases to be affected by outward things, but converts them more easily to its own nature, and appropriates them more entirely to its own purposes. It is subjective; "the hidden man of the heart," subordinating the outer man, and the outer world, to itself. Its purposes act independently of the feelings of pleasure and pain from which they first took their rise. It is the oracle and earnest of his future destiny. If its aim be to harmonize with the will of God, it is constantly approaching the unchangeable without, as well as within. At every upward step it is emerging from the uncertainty of probation, into the region of stability and repose. Its path "shineth more and more;" every sweep of its wing bearing it nearer to the uncreated light, and more within the circle in which every object feels the ever-growing attraction of the Divine Centre. 6. This course of remark clearly presupposes man's objective relations. That he sustains such relations we have already seen; we have now to show that there is no obligation resulting from these, obedience to which is not essential to his well-being as an integral portion of the great system, and as a subject of the Divine government. For example: as a creature, physical, organic, and animal, there is an appropriate locality for him on the surface of the globe, as well as a state of the atmosphere, a |