第542页 / 共1391页

Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now

allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the

sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to

health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been

invested with a superstitious awe. But, living as we do far on in

the world's history, we are no longer able to stamp at once with

the impress of religion a new prohibition. A free agent cannot

have his fancies regulated by law; and the execution of the law

would be rendered impossible, owing to the uncertainty of the

cases in which marriage was to be forbidden. Who can weigh

virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental

qualities against bodily? Who can measure probabilities against

certainties? There has been some good as well as evil in the

discipline of suffering; and there are diseases, such as

consumption, which have exercised a refining and softening

influence on the character.