8648. UNIFORMITY, Physical and moral.—
It is a singular anxiety which some
people have that we should all think alike.
Would the world be more beautiful were all
our faces alike? were our tempers, our talents,
our tastes, our forms, our wishes, aversions
and pursuits cast exactly in the same mould?
If no varieties existed in the animal, vegetable
or mineral creation, but all moved strictly
uniform, catholic and orthodox, what a world
of physical and moral monotony would it be.
These are the absurdities into which those run
who usurp the throne of God, and dictate to
Him what He should have done. May they
with all their metaphysical riddles appear before
that tribunal with as clean hands and
hearts as you and I shall. There, suspended
in the scales of eternal justice, faith and
works will show their worth by their weight.—
To Charles Thomson.
Ford ed., x, 76.
(M.
1817)
