Page:OptimismBlood.djvu/97

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SECTION XVII.

COMPENSATION.

We must agree with those loving philosophers who hold it incorrect to impugn the providence of God for any circumstance which apparently finds compensation neither in this world nor the next; for there is a possibility of the imperfection of our vision; and there is many a good providence in our memory which requires the wisdom of centuries to heartily approve it. But when we come to look for an event which (judged by those laws of mind which experience has taught us) does no being good, or is not for the general good of all being, we shall be troubled to find one. It is indeed an ill wind that blows nobody good. There is a balance or compensation in nature, founded partly on those necessities of finite consciousness which we have exhibited, which cannot be disturbed. As in the sea, when a wave rise, a hollow must be left, so in the moral world, and in individual experience, there is a horizontal line, all prominence above which leaves a counterpart hollow below. This horizontal line is the equator of the moral world and universe. And as agitation is to the beauty and purity of the sea, so is it to the diversion and progression of man.

In the distribution of the world's variety, by the necessity of this balance, every peculiar experience, pleasant or painful—above or below the equator of consciousness—has a peculiar counterpart, whereby

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