e slavish mind; and despair re-awakens the courage that was
lost. Then the two antagonistic vices will have destroyed each other,
and the noblest in all human relations, permanent freedom, will have
come forth from them.

The actions of free beings have, strictly speaking, no other
consequences than those which affect other free beings. For only in
such, and for such, does a world exist; and that, wherein all agree,
is the world. But they have consequences in free agents only by
means of the infinite Will, by which all individuals exist. A call, a
revelation of that Will to us, is always a requirement to perform some
particular duty. Hence, even that which we call evil in the world, the
consequence of the abuse of freedom, exists only through _him_; and it
exists for all, for whom it exists, only so far as it imposes duties
upon them. Did it not fall within the eternal plan of our moral
education and the education of our whole race that precisely these
duties should be laid upon us, they would not have been imposed; and
that whereby they are imposed, and which we call evil, would never
have been. In this view, everything which takes place is good, and
absolutely accordant with the best ends. There is but one world
possible--a thoroughly good one. Everything that occurs in this world
conduces to the reformation and education of man, and, by means of
that, to the furtherance of his earthly destination.

It is this higher world-plan that we call Nature, when we say Nature
leads men through want to industry, through the evils of general
disorder to a righteous polity, through the miseries of their
perpetual wars to final, ever-during peace. Thy will, O Infinite, thy
providence alone, is this higher Nature! This too is best understood
by artless simplicity, which regards this life as a place of
discipline and education, as a school for eternity; which, in all
the fortunes it experiences, the most trivial as well as the most
momentous, beholds thy ordinations designed for good; and which firmly
believes that all things will work together for good to those who love
their duty and know thee.

O truly have I spent the former days of my life in darkness! Truly
have I heaped errors upon errors, and thought myself wise! Now only
out of thy mouth, wondrous Spirit, I fully understand the doctrine
which seemed so strange to me![3] although my understanding had
nothing to oppose to it. For now only I overlook it, in its whole
exten