many virtuous intentions are entirely lost for this world, and others appear even to hinder the purpose which they were designed to promote. On the other hand, the most despicable passions of men, their vices and their crimes, often forward, more certainly, the good cause than the endeavours of the virtuous man, who will never do evil that good may come! It seems that the Highest Good of the world pursues its course of increase and prosperity quite independently of all human virtues or vices, according to its own laws, through an invisible and unknown power,—just as the heavenly bodies run their appointed course, independently of all human effort; and that this power carries forward, in its own great plan, all human intentions, good and bad, and, with superior power, employs for its own purpose that which was undertaken for other ends.
Thus, even if the attainment of this earthly end could be the purpose of our existence, and every doubt which reason could start with regard to it were silenced, yet would this end not be ours, but the end of that unknown power. We do not know, even for a moment, what is conducive to this end; and nothing is left to us but to give by our actions some material, no matter what, for this power to work upon, and to leave to it the task of elaborating this material to its own purposes. It would, in that case, be our highest wisdom not to trouble ourselves about matters that do not concern us; to live according to our own fancy or inclinations, and quietly leave the consequences to that unknown power. The moral law within us would be void and superfluous, and absolutely unfitted to a being destined to nothing higher than this.
