Page:OptimismBlood.djvu/126

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SECTION XXI.

THE POLICY OP LIFE IS HARMONY WITH NATURE.

Still it is an open question, and as such falls under the judgment of practical reason. Here then is the sure policy of man: We must assume that fitness to THIS WORLD CONTAINS THE EMBRYON FITNESS TO ALL WORLDS TO COME. If there be other lives, it is improbable that they exist in any contradiction of the policy of this. The harmony of nature forbids the supposition that he who moulds his being in conformity with the laws of this life is preparing himself for degradation in the next. And so clear and forcible is the propriety of this conclusion, when fairly considered, that we may say with confidence, the knowledge of the harmony between nature and man is the knowledge of the true religion of this world. — Another truth follows, equally cogent: we see that men differ in opinion,—which difference argues a difference of construction, or of bias: Then the method of attaining the harmony between nature and one man must differ from the proper method between nature and another man,—and of this difference every man is properly his own private judge.

Now inasmuch as man consists mainly if not entirely of two principles, the animal and the spiritual—the mortal and the immortal,—(or, if spirit be denied as an independent essence, then of two tendencies, one to sensuality, and the other to spirituality,) then we must believe that the difference in men consists some-

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