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The question then reduces itself to this: Wherefore did a being, who could have made sentient beings immortal, choose to make them mortal? or, Wherefore has he placed man upon the earth for a time only? or, Wherefore has he set bounds to the powers and capacities which he has been pleased to bestow upon his creatures?
The true arrangement then is this: Physical evil is that which depends on the constitution of matter, or only is so far connected with the constitution of mind as that the nature and existence of a sentient being must be assumed in order to its mischief being felt.
The infinite thinker of all things, of all ideas, of all words, who can never be seen and never comprehended, because he is infinite, but in whose thoughts all creatures, the entire creation, have their source, and who when rightly understood approaches us palpably or symbolically in all things, in the sole path of sense by which he can approach us sentient beings, why should we not call him Mind, or God, or as the Jews called him, Jehovah, or the Mohammedans, Allah, or the Brahmins, Brahman?
He knows also his own relations to other sentient beings, and adapts his conduct to them, according to the circumstances in which he is placed, the persons with whom he is connected, and the objects which he wishes to accomplish. He learns to accommodate his measures to new circumstances as they arise, and thus is guided and directed through his physical relations.
We owe it to ourselves to give him nothing; but, since he must live, to put him under supervision, and compel him to labor. Sociability is the attraction felt by sentient beings for each other. Justice is this same attraction, accompanied by thought and knowledge. But under what general concept, in what category of the understanding, is justice placed? In the category of equal quantities.
If the room to which my bed was removed were a sentient thing that could give evidence, I might appeal to it at this day who sleeps there now, I wonder! to bear witness for me what a heavy heart I carried to it.
He next brings out a metaphysical difficulty in applying right and wrong to actions, on the supposition that they are mere effects of sensation. All sensations, as such, are modes of consciousness, or feelings, of a sentient being, and must be of a nature different from their causes.
Between these there is no antagonism. The sum of life experiences consists solely in the adjustments required to enable the sentient organism man or beast to live. How readily a "throw-back" to earlier and cruder life may be brought about under favorable conditions, is shown by the methods and virulence of combat during the vicious massacre in the war just ended.
Francis was standing there, still, not trying to answer Peggy. He seemed to Marjorie pitifully at their mercy; why, she did not know, for he had neither said nor looked anything but the utmost sternness. And Marjorie herself knew that he was not being kind or fair that he had not been, in his exaction. Still she looked at that hand, moving like a sentient thing, and spoke.
In his hidden and most secret thoughts, those thoughts he never uttered to another, this deep belief in the Earth as a conscious, sentient, living Being had persisted in spite of all the forces education and modern life had turned against it. It seemed in him an undying instinct, an unmovable conviction, though he hardly dared acknowledge it even to himself.
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