which is the shadow of justice"; even as pity is the shadow of
love. Though simply a geographical and chronological accident,
which changes with every age of the world, it may deter men from
seeking and securing the prize of successful villainy. But this
incentive to beneficence must be applied to actions that will be
done, not to deeds that have been done.

The Haji, moreover, carefully distinguishes between the working
of fate under a personal God, and under the Reign of Law. In the
former case the contradiction between the foreknowledge of a
Creator, and the free-will of a Creature, is direct, palpable,
absolute. We might as well talk of black-whiteness and of
white-blackness. A hundred generations of divines have never been
able to ree the riddle; a million will fail. The difficulty is
insurmountable to the Theist whose Almighty is perforce
Omniscient, and as Omniscient, Prescient. But it disappears when
we convert the Person into Law, or a settled order of events;
subject, moreover, to certain exceptions fixed and immutable, but
at present unknown to man. The difference is essential as that
between the penal code with its narrow forbiddal, and the broad
commandment which is a guide rather than a task-master.

Thus, too, the belief in fixed Law, versus arbitrary will,
modifies the Haji's opinions concerning the pursuit of happiness.
Mankind, _das rastlose Ursachenthier_, is born to be on the whole
equally happy and miserable. The highest organisms, the fine
porcelain of our family, enjoy the most and suffer the most: they
have a capacity for rising to the empyrean of pleasure and for
plunging deep into the swift-flowing river of woe and pain. Thus
Dante (Inf. vi. 106):--