All is perfect. It is
men's own imperfection that makes them think otherwise." "All is
perfect," you say, "yet man is _imperfect_; and his imperfection makes
him think other things imperfect. All is perfect, yet something is
imperfect; and that something is the most perfect or the least imperfect
creature in existence." "Imperfection itself is a part of perfection,"
says the Optimist. "As discords are necessary to the highest musical
compositions; so imperfection is necessary to the highest perfection."
"The most difficult point of all," says a philosophical Unitarian, "is
that of necessity. Every thing must have a cause. Man's actions are the
result of physical causes; yet man is consciously free." "Man is no more
free than the planets," says an Atheist. "He _acts_ freely, as the
planets do,--that is, he acts in harmony with his tendencies,--in
harmony with the causes of his actions,--the causes of his actions cause
them by causing him to will them, by inclining him to do them; and the
causes of planetary action produce that action in the same way: but the
freedom and the necessity are the same in the one case as in the other.
All is free, and all is bound. The chain is infinite, eternal, and
almighty. The difference between man and a planet is, that man is
conscious of his acts, and the planet is not.
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