Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/165

 find in Nature that every want is naturally supplied. That is, there is something external to each created being to answer all the internal wants of that being. This conclusion could have been anticipated without experience, since it follows from the perfections of the Deity, that all his direct works must be perfect. Experience shows this is the rule in nature. We never find a race of animals destitute of what is most needed for them, wandering up and down, seeking rest and finding none. What is most certainly needed for each, is most bountifully provided. The supply answers the demand. The natural circumstances, therefore, attending a race of animals, for example, are perfect. The animal keeps perfectly the law or condition of its nature. The result of these perfect circumstances on the one hand, and perfect obedience on the other, is this,—each animal in its natural state attains its legitimate end, reaches perfection after its kind. Thus every Sparrow in a flock is perfect in the qualities of a Sparrow, at least, such is the general rule; the exceptions to it are so rare they only seem to confirm that rule.

Now to apply this general maxim to the special case of Man. We are mixed beings, spirits wedded to bodies. Setting aside the religious nature of Man for the moment, and for the present purpose distributing our faculties into the animal, intellectual, affectional, and moral, let us see the relation between our four-fold wants and the supply thereof. We have certain animal wants, such as the desire of food, shelter, and comfort. Our animal welfare, even our animal existence, depends on the relation of the world to these wants, on the condition that they are supplied. Now we find in the world of Nature, exterior to