be avoided by voluntary action; and the stimulus thus given by the wise severity of Nature begets that activity of the moral life from which results the highest form of happiness. When we attempt to estimate our mental and moral sufferings, it is impossible even to approximate the proportion of them that are due to our voluntary infringement of law; but, adding together all that spring from natural sources and all that men bring upon themselves, the suffering is still outweighed by the pleasure among the great mass of men. But, however unfavorable a view we take of the condition of humanity, it is gross exaggeration to say, "_There is no evidence whatever_ in Nature for Divine justice, whatever standard of justice our ethical opinions may lead us to recognize: ... there is _no shadow of justice_ in the general arrangements of Nature." Though many of Nature's dealings with man appear to be unjust, by far the larger proportion of them are graduated according to what seems, even to us, a standard of strict equity. As Matthew Arnold puts it, there is a power in Nature "which makes for righteousness." And every generation verifies the words of the Preacher: "The righteous shall be recompensed _in the earth_--much more the wicked and the sinner;" "as righteousness _tendeth to life_, so he that pursueth evil _pursueth it to his own death_." It was the reverent saying of that noblest of pagans, Marcus Aurelius, that "if a man should have a feeling and a deeper insight with respect to the things which are produced in the universe, there is hardly anything that comes in the course of Nature which will not seem to him to be in a manner disposed _so as to give pleasure_." When that "deeper insight" comes, and the eyes of man's spiritual understanding are opened, all appearance of injustice in Nature will probably vanish. If men were indeed as wretched as Mr. Mill describes them to be, and had no fear of judgment and immortality--which Mr. Mill informs us are probably but figments of the brain--why should they continue to endure "the calamity of so long life"? 'Twere best at once to sink to peace, Like birds the charming serpent draws-- To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness, and to cease. So men would begin to reason if this dark gospel of despair were ever to gain currency; but, fortunately, it is only the morbid dream of a closet philosopher, who fancied the world was upside down because he could not unriddle it with his logical Rule of Three.