What? and shall not this law, conformable to the internal powers of nature, educing order out of chaos, and converting into regularity the confusion of human affairs, prevail in the life of man? Undoubtedly it does: we bear its principle within us, and it must and will act suitably to its nature. All the errors of man are mists of truth: all the passions of his breast are wild impulses of a power, which yet knows not itself, but, according to its nature, acts only for the best. Even the tempests of the ocean, those frequent engines of ravage and destruction, are the offspring of a harmonious order of things, to which they are not less subservient than the gentle zephyr. It is hoped a few observations may be placed in such a light, as to confirm this pleasing truth.
1. As the storms of the sea occur less frequently than moderate gales, so in the human species nature has benevolently ordered that fewer destroyers than preservers should be born.
It is a divine law in the animal kingdom, that not so many lions and tigers are capable of existence, and actually exist, as sheep and doves: in history we find the same beneficent disposition of things; so that we have a much smaller number of Nebuchadnezzars, Cambyses, Alexanders, Syllas, Attilas, and Genghis-Khans, than of less ferocious generals, or quiet peaceful monarchs. To the production of the former either very inordinate passions, and faulty natural dispositions, are requisite, whence they appear to the Earth as fiery meteors instead of associate planets; or singular circumstances of education, rare occurrences of early habit, or the imperious demands of hostile, political necessity, stir up these scourges of divine wrath, as they are called, against mankind, and keep up their relentless swing. If it be true, therefore, that Nature deviates not from her course on our account, when, among the innumerable varieties of form and temperament she produces, she occasionally exhibits to the World men of unruly passions, spirits of destruction, not of preservation; still it remains in men’s own power, not to entrust their flocks to these wolves and tigers, and even to tame them by the laws of humanity. The wild ox no longer appears in Europe, which formerly enjoyed its forest domains in every part of it; and Rome at length found it difficult, to procure the number of African monsters, she required for her amphitheaters. In proportion as lands are cultivated, deserts are diminished, and their wild inhabitants become rarer. In the human species the increasing civilization of man has had a similar effect; his disposition to unruly passions giving way with his decrease of strength, a more delicate creature was formed. With all this, irregularities are possible; and these frequently rage more perniciously, from being founded on infantile weakness, as the examples of many Roman and Eastern despots show: however, as a spoiled child is always more easy to restrain than a bloodthirsty tiger, Nature, with her corrective regulations, has taught us the way to rule the lawless, and tame the insatiable savage, by increasing diligence. If there be no longer regions of dragons, to employ the arms of the giants of antiquity, we require no Herculean destructive powers against men themselves. Heroes of this stamp may pursue their bloody game on Caucasus, or in Africa, and there seek new minotaurs to encounter: the society in which they live possesses the undoubted right itself to destroy all the flame-breathing oxen of a Geryon. It suffers by its own fault, if it tamely yield itself up to them as a prey; as it was the fault of the nations themselves, that they did not unite against desolating Rome with all the force of a common league, to maintain the freedom of the World.
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