The Harmony of Creation [pp. 278-290]

THE HARMONY OF CREATION.
driven over, we must drive around; a crooked plantation road is a model
chart for a government; is a theory deduced from opposing forces which we
offer for the consideration of statesmen. The true principle of wagon-driv ing is not to let the horses run away, and never to upset, but the driver
must use the team to the gee-and-hoa principles of the bridle, which mules
very soon understand and obey. Governments have to pull to the right and
to the left; the pull to-day is wrong to-morrow. When quite a boy, I heard
a distinguished statesman remark that the figures in political economy did
not add up as in arithmetic; that sometimes two and two made six-sometimes nothing. I did not understand him at the time, but in after years I
saw the truth of the remark. Political economy is not an exact science, nor
is government, but rules and principles right at one time, under different
circumstances are entirely wrong.
In finishing this paper, the author urges upon such as may read it, to
adopt the theory of "The Harmony of Physical and Moral Antagonisms;"
apply it in the moral world; man requires a motive, or a principle, for every
act; he requires a motive, or a principle, to restrain, as well as to impel, at
one and the same time in one and the same action.
In connection with the theory of physical and moral antagonism, we add
the following quotation from "Antinomic Pathology;" it needs no comment,
so fully does it elucidate the principle under consideration. The author
says:
"The most remarkable and most important antinome in the moral world is man's double
nature. He is a social animal; and of necessity lives as much for others as for himself. The
motives of his conduct are one half selfish, the other half anti-selfish, oself-sacrificing. The
selfish half of man's nature preserves and takes care of the individual. The anti-selfish half
provides for, protects and preserves society. Were man's nature altogether selfish, there could
be no society. Men would live isolated and alone; the strong would war upon the weak; men
would oppress and enslave women; and parents would kill their children to get rid of the
trouble, labor and expense of rearing them. Were man a purely selfish being, the human race
would soon disappear from the earth. We live and labor as much for others as for self,-for
children, for wives, for husbands, for friends and neighbors, for society and for cou-ntry."*
In further illustration of the manner in which nature has adjusted her
moral balances, we quote from the same article:
"All governments would be tyrannical, and in the end impracticable, did not man's antiselfish nature provide a salutary and sufficient check and balance to his selfish nature. The
governed, by means of their very weakness and dependence, sufficiently control their governor; for in the moral world weakness is strength. Had God made man entirely selfish, he
never would have required of him the impossible duty of'loving his neighbor as himself,' or
of' doing unto others as he would that they should do unto him.' But making him anti-selfish,
as well as selfish, these duties become of easy and natural performance, except with depraved
and wicked natures."
We are satisfied that one of the pernicious tendencies of the human mnind
has been the belief in, and the effort to practice absolute, unchangeable
truth; it has produced more bloodshed and driven mankind to greater excess
than any other false idea which has been taught by vain philosophy. It
ignores the harmony of antagonism, and impels one force in one and the
same direction. A plant will not grow in the soil if deprived of the atmosphere; and no truth is wholly the truth when isolated and uncontrolled by
another truth exactly its opposite.
We have in therapeutic literature the expressive maxim, contraria contrariis mnedentur. If a person is sick from exposure to the sun, he is cured
by a cooling and antiphlogistic treatment; if from exposure to cold, he is
relieved by warmth. If sickness is produced by too much exercise, the patient must have rest; if from excessive eating, relief is obtained by abstinence. How often is it that we perceive opposing functional action in the
same organs; as in the act of respiration, we see involved inspiration and
* Vide Southern Literary Messenger, July, 1863; art. "Antinomic Pathology," written by
George Fitzhugh, of Virginia.
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