its power felt. If we expect a treasury of
knowledge in history how we are deceived! All attempts of philosophy to
reconcile what the moral world demands with what the real world gives is
belied by experience, and nature seems as illogical in history as she is
logical in the organic kingdoms.

But if we give up explanation it is different. Nature, in being
capricious and defying logic, in pulling down great and little, in
crushing the noblest works of man, taking centuries to form--nature, by
deviating from intellectual laws, proves that you cannot explain nature
by nature's laws themselves, and this sight drives the mind to the world
of ideas, to the absolute.

But though nature as a sensuous activity drives us to the ideal, it
throws us still more into the world of ideas by the terrible. Our
highest aspiration is to be in good relations with physical nature,
without violating morality. But it is not always convenient to serve two
masters; and though duty and the appetites should never be at strife,
physical necessity is peremptory, and nothing can save men from evil
destiny. Happy is he who learns to bear what he cannot change! There
are cases where fate overpowers all ramparts, and where the only
resistance is, like a pure spirit, to throw freely off all interest of
sense, and strip yourself of your body. Now this force comes from
sublime emotions, and a frequent commerce with destructive nature.
Pathos is a sort of artificial misfortune, and brings us to the spiritual
law that commands our soul. Real misfortune does not always choose its
time opportunely, while pathos finds us armed at all points. By
frequently renewing this exercise of its own activity the mind controls
the sensuous, so that when real misfortune comes, it can treat it as an
artificial suffering, and make it a sublime emotion. Thus pathos takes
away some of the malignity of destiny, and wards off its blows.

Away then with that false theory which supposes falsely a harmony binding
well being and well doing. Let evil destiny show its face. Our safety
is not in blindness, but in facing our dangers. What can do so better
than familiarity with the splendid and terrible evolution of events, or
than pictures showing man in conflict with chance; evil triumphant,
security deceived--pictures shown us throughout history, and placed
before us by tragedy? Whoever passes in review the terrible fate of
Mithridates, of Syracuse, and Carthage, cannot help keeping