d that,
too, without blame or punishment being involved in either case. On Mr.
Combe's theory, it would seem to be necessary that every one should be a
man of science, if he would avoid _sin_ and _punishment_; and yet,
unfortunately, the ablest man of science is not exempt, in the present
state of his knowledge, from the same calamities which befall his less
enlightened, but not less virtuous, neighbors.

These views are strikingly confirmed by the remarks of a writer in "The
Reasoner," who blames Mr. Combe for complicating his argument
unnecessarily and uselessly with some of the truths of Theism, and who
thinks that the doctrine of "natural laws" can only be consistently
maintained on the ground of Atheism. "If the system of Nature," he says,
"be viewed by itself, without any reference to a Divine Author or
all-perfect Creator,--merely as an isolated system of facts,--no
comparison could be made, no reconciliation would be necessary, and the
system of Nature would be regarded as the result of some unknown cause,
a combination of good and evil, and no more to be censured or wondered
at for being what it is, than any single substance or fact in Nature
excites censure or surprise on account of its peculiar constitution....
The assumption of a Supernatural Being as the author and director of the
laws of Nature appears to me to be attended with several mischievous
results. First, you make every infringement of the laws of Nature an
offence against the supposed Divine Legislator, which, to a pious and
conscientious mind, must give rise to distressing remorse.... Again,
under this view, the penalties incurred will often be very unjust,
oppressive, and cruel; as where persons are placed in circumstances that
compel them to violate the laws of Nature, as when they are obliged to
pursue some unwholesome employment which injures their health and
shortens their lives; or where the penalty is incurred by an accident,
as when a person breaks a leg or an arm, or is killed by a fall; or
where a person is materially or fatally injured in endeavoring to save
another person from injury or death. In such cases as these, to
represent the unavoidable pain or death incurred or undergone for an act
of beneficence, as a punishment inflicted for a transgression of the
laws of God the Divine Legislator, is to violate all our notions of
justice and right, to say nothing of goodness or mercy, and to represent
the Divine Being as grossly unjust an