inferior parts that support the superior, though they sometimes
offend the fastidious microscopic eye of short-sighted man,
contribute to the symmetry, grace, and fair proportion of the
whole.

The infinite variety of the forms and operations of nature,
besides tending immediately to awaken and improve the mind by the
variety of impressions that it creates, opens other fertile
sources of improvement by offering so wide and extensive a field
for investigation and research. Uniform, undiversified perfection
could not possess the same awakening powers. When we endeavour
then to contemplate the system of the universe, when we think of
the stars as the suns of other systems scattered throughout
infinite space, when we reflect that we do not probably see a
millionth part of those bright orbs that are beaming light and
life to unnumbered worlds, when our minds, unable to grasp the
immeasurable conception, sink, lost and confounded, in admiration
at the mighty incomprehensible power of the Creator, let us not
querulously complain that all climates are not equally genial,
that perpetual spring does not reign throughout the year, that it
God's creatures do not possess the same advantages, that clouds
and tempests sometimes darken the natural world and vice and
misery the moral world, and that all the works of the creation
are not formed with equal perfection. Both reason and experience
seem to indicate to us that the infinite variety of nature (and
variety cannot exist without inferior parts, or apparent
blemishes) is admirably adapted to further the high purpose of
the creation and to produce the greatest possible quantity of
good.