Lastly, the whole world is to be taken into the estimate, and the nations are to be counted as members of one great family of man, for which every portion is to make sacrifices. Thus, as age, and experience, and habits of obedience to the laws of rectitude increase, the duties and obligations grow more numerous and complicated. But the same grand principle is more and more developed, that each individual is to seek the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil, for the vast whole as well as each subordinate part, while _self_ is to receive only its just and proper share.
The same great design of the Creator can be detected also in specific organizations, by which minds so differ from each other as to fit them for the diverse positions and relations that the common good demands. If all were exactly alike in the amount of constitutional powers and in the proportionate combinations, it can easily be seen that the general result would be far less favorable to the happiness of the whole. But as it is, some have the love of power very large, and love to lead and control; others have it small, and love to follow. Some have elevated intellect, and love to teach; others have humbler capacities, and better love humbler pursuits.
These varied combinations also give scope to the virtues of pity, tenderness, patience, mercy, justice, self-denial, and many other graces that could not be called into being without all the disparities, social, domestic, intellectual, and moral, that we find existing. Meantime, the principle of habit and the power of the will give abundant opportunities for modifying these natural peculiarities to accommodate to varying circumstances.
To these indications of benevolent design may be added the organization of the bodily system, and the constitution of the material world without. In examining the body we inhabit, so nicely adjusted, so perfectly adapted to our necessities, so beautifully and harmoniously arranged, so "fearfully and wonderfully made," it is almost beyond the power of numbers to express the multiplied contrivances for ease, comfort, and delight.
We daily pursue our business and our pleasure, thoughtless of the thousand operations which are going on, and the busy mechanism employed in securing the objects we desire. The warm current that is flowing from the centre to the extremities, with its life-giving energies, and then returning to be purified and again sent forth; the myriads of branching nerves that are the sensitive discerners of good or ill; the unnumbered muscles and tendons that are contracting and expanding in all parts of our frame; the nicely-adjusted joints, and bands, and ligaments, that sustain, and direct, and support; the perpetual expansion and contraction of the vital organ; the thousand hidden contrivances and operations of the animal frame, all are quietly and constantly performing their generous functions, and administering comfort and enjoyment to the conscious spirit that dwells within.