Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    chances that the playful boy loses his hold (we shall say) of the branch of a tree, and has no solid sup- port immediately below, the law of gravitation un- relentingly pulls him to the ground, and thus he is hurt. Now it was not a primary object of gravita- tion to injure boys; but gravitation could not but operate in the circumstances, its nature being to be universal and invariable. The evil is, there- fore, only a casual exception from something in the main good. The same explanation applies to even the most conspicuous of the evils which afflict society. War, it may be said, and said truly, is a tremendous example of evil, in the misery, hardship, waste of human life, and mis-spending of human energies, which it occasions. But what is it that produces war? Certain tendencies of human nature, as keen assertion of a supposed right, resentment of supposed injury, acquisitiveness, desire of admira- tion, combativeness, or mere love of excitement. All of these are tendencies which are every day, in a legitimate extent of action, producing great and indispensable benefits to us. Man would be a tame, indolent, unserviceable being without them, and his fate would be starvation. War, then, huge evil though it be, is, after all, but the
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