the next day twenty leagues away, as gay as if nothing had happened. And
how many of them perished in the attempt to rescue clothes or papers or
money? Is it not true that the person of a man is now, thanks to
civilisation, the least part of himself, and is hardly worth saving
after loss of the rest? Again, there are some events which lose much of
their horror when we look at them closely. A premature death is not
always a real evil and may be a relative good; of the people crushed to
death under the ruins of Lisbon, many no doubt thus escaped still worse
calamities. And is it worse to be killed swiftly than to await death in
prolonged anguish?[338]

The good of the whole is to be sought before the good of the part.
Although the whole material universe ought not to be dearer to its
Creator than a single thinking and feeling being, yet the system of the
universe which produces, preserves, and perpetuates all thinking and
feeling beings, ought to be dearer to him than any one of them, and he
may, notwithstanding his goodness, or rather by reason of his goodness,
sacrifice something of the happiness of individuals to the preservation
of the whole. "That the dead body of a man should feed worms or wolves
or plants is not, I admit, a compensation for the death of such a man;
but if in the system of this universe, it is necessary for the
preservation of the human race that there should be a circulation of
substance between men, animals, vegetables, then the particular mishap
of an individual contributes to the general good. I die, I am eaten by
worms; but my children, my brothers, will live as I have lived; my body
enriches the earth of which they will consume the fruits; and so I do,
by the order of nature and for all men, what Codrus, Curtius, the Decii,
and a thousand others, did of their own free will for a small part of
men." (p. 305.)