The Art of Being Happy: In a Series of Letters from a Father to His Children: with Observations and CommentsDroz, Joseph
Philosophy
The Art of Being Happy: In a Series of Letters from a Father to His Children: with Observations and Comments
Droz, Joseph
Happiness
We infer from analogy, that these laws always have been, are, and
always will be, invariably the same; and that they prevail alike
in every portion of God’s universe. We so judge, because we believe
the existing order of things to be the wisest and the best. We
know that the physical laws actually do prevail alike in every
part of our world, and as far beyond it, as the highest helps of
astronomy can aid our researches into the depths of immensity. Is
it not probable, that if we could investigate the system, as far as
the utmost stretch of thought, we should find no point, where the
laws of gravity, light, heat and motion do not prevail; where the
sentient beings are not restricted to the same moral relations, as
in our world? Wherever the empire of science has extended, we note
these laws equally prevalent, in a molecule and a world, and from
the lowest order of sentient beings up to man. The arrangement of
the great whole, it should seem, must be a single emanation from
the same wisdom and will, perfectly uniform throughout the whole
empire. What an impressive motive to study these laws, and conform
to them, is it, to know, that they are as irresistible, as the
divine power, as universal, as the divine presence, as permanent
as the divine existence;--that there is no evading them, that no
art can disconnect misery from transgressing them, that no change
of place or time, that not death, nor any transformation which
our conscious being can undergo, will, during the revolutions of
eternity, dispense any more with the necessity of observing these
laws, than during our present transitory existence in clay!
I need not dwell a moment upon the proofs of the absolute identity
of the physical laws. No one need be told, that a ship floats,
water descends, heat warms, and cold freezes, and that all physical
properties of matter are the same over the globe. We shall only
show by a few palpable examples, that our system is arranged in
conformity to the organic laws. Every discovery in the kingdom of
animated nature developes new instances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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