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Untitled Article
selves of gravitation when we lay the foundation , and of cohesion when we plaster the walls , and of combustion when we kindle bur fires , and of radiation when we light our candles , and of far more principles of light and colours than the ancient world dreamed of , when we dispose our curtains and carpets and pictures and chandeliers so as to please the eye . When we cure diseases , we
expose certain substances to the operation of certain principles , and either obtain the wished-for result without reaching the principles themselves , or fail through ignorance of some intervening influence . In proportion to our knowledge of principles is the accuracy of our calculations , and the variety of achievements of which we become capable : i . e . in proportion to our physical knowledge is the improvement of our temporal state . But it is
clear that we can have no knowledge , and can form no calculations , and can therefore make no steady progress unless there be immutability in the principles on which we depend . If gravitation acts to-day and not to-morrow , there will be poor encouragement to build a house . If the principles of vegetation some ^ times work , and are sometimes suspended for two or three seasons together , the husbandman may till his field for the sake of taking
his chance of the corn coming up , but he will lose all the heartiness of assured hope . If the crew of a merchant vessel which sails for America find at last that the compass has ( for however wise a purpose ) varied so as to guide them to India , they may possibly see such a destination to be best for them in the present instance , but they will be slow to twist their compass again . There may be one case in which this immutability may apparently
give way without producing injury . If it be intimated by the Power which institutes the principles that , at a particular period , for a ,, particular purpose , and by means of a particular set of persons , bearing credentials which cannot be mistaken , so unusual a modification shall take place th at ^ it shall appear as if the principles themselves were changed , uch a phenomenon need not shake man ' s confidence in the constitution of nature .
Warning being given , and the power of causing change being confined to those who bear indisputable credentials , the world may go on as if nothing had happened , except in as far as it has become « wiser respecting the origin of ml principles , and enlightened respecting the power by which they are * ordained and conducted . Ordinary men will not , any more than before , attempt to walk
the waves , or to heal diseases by a word , or to make the dead sit jip and speajk by touching the bier , while they may discern more clearly than before by whose command the deeps open a path to the industry of man , through whose permission sickness vanishes before the skill of man , and by whose will the principle of life is withdrawn to act more vigorously in some other region . The intimate connexion between the physical and the moral itate of man , the blending of the finer shades of natural and moral
Untitled Article
J 35 O Ori Nature and Providence to Communities .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/34/
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