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other ; and that what men call important influences are those which alone are worthy of the Divine coenizanpe . Yet how commonly do the greatest events spring from the most insignificant causes ! The most trifling act of carelessness , a casual touch , the inhaling of a single breath , has carried the plague into countries where thousands of lives have fallen a sacrifice to it . The fire of London began in an obscure corner of an obscure house in an
obscure part of the city . Wars of devastation have arisen from disputes more trifling than disturb the peace of every alehouse every day ; and the conflicting feelings in the mind of Luther which originated the Reformation were probably not very different in kind or degree from those which have agitated thousands of ignobler minds since the world began . If Napoleon had been born a year sooner or later , the state of society would have been so far different as to form his mind , and therefore to shape his fortunes , and through his , the fortunes of the world , in a widely different manner from
that which we have witnessed and experienced . To adopt the ingenious speculation of an able writer ( the author of Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions ) : " The affairs of France would have fallen into different hands , and have been conducted in another manner . The measures of the British cabinet ,
the debates in parliament , the subsidies to foreign powers , the battles by sea and land , the marches and countermarches , the wounds , deaths , and promotions , the fears and hopes and anxieties of a thousand individuals , would all have been different . The speculations of those writers and speakers who employed themselves in discussing these various subjects , and canvassing the conduct of this celebrated man , would not have been called forth . The train
of ideas in every mind interested in public affairs would not have been the same . Pitt would not have made the same speeches , nor Fox the same replies . Lord Byron ' s poetry would have wanted some splendid passages . The Duke of Wellington might have still been plain Arthur Wellesley" ( and the principle of religious liberty might have been yet unrecognized by the government of Great Britain ) . " The imagination of the reader will easily carry him through all the various consequences to soldiers and sailors , tradesmen and artizans , printers and booksellers , downward through every
gradation of society . In a word , when we take into account these various consequences , and the thousand ways in which the mere intelligence of Bonaparte ' s proceedings , and of the measures to counteract them , influenced the feelings , the speech , and the actions of mankind , it is scarcely too much to say , that the single circumstance of Bonaparte ' s birth happening when it did has more or less affected almost every individual in Europe , as well as a numerous ) multitude in the other quarters of the globe /'
If the ravages of war and pestilence , the renovation of Christianity , and the fortunes of a continent , are not , with the causes from which they spring , the objects of Divine cognizance , the doctrine of a Providence must be relinquished . The distinction between a universal and a particular Providence , though often adopted , is merely nominal . It arises ( like almost every other mistake or difficulty to which we are liable on subjects of this nature ) from our
proneness to liken the Deity to ourselves , and to suppose too close a resemblance between the methods of Divine and human agency . To the Divine mind all ideas must be supposed to be ever present ; while to human faculties they arise in succession . This succession originates our conception of Time ; while it is inconceivable that such a conception should bear a relation to the Divine Mind , any more than extension to the Divine substance . Hence , while our thoughts and our actions are successive ; while our memory
Untitled Article
224 CrombieU Natural Theology .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1830, page 224, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2583/page/8/
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