[sic] & as if in feeling myself a part of the great whole I had found the truth & secret of the universe—­But when retired in my cell I have studied & contemplated the various motions and actions in the world the weight of evil has confounded me—­If I thought of the creation I saw an eternal chain of evil linked one to the other—­from the great whale who in the sea swallows & destroys multitudes & the smaller fish that live on him also & torment him to madness—­to the cat whose pleasure it is to torment her prey I saw the whole creation filled with pain—­each creature seems to exist through the misery of another & death & havoc is the watchword of the animated world—­And Man also—­even in Athens the most civilized spot on the earth what a multitude of mean passions—­envy, malice—­a restless desire to depreciate all that was great and good did I see—­And in the dominions of the great being I saw man [reduced?][97] far below the animals of the field preying on one anothers [sic] hearts; happy in the downfall of others—­themselves holding on with bent necks and cruel eyes to a wretch more a slave if possible than they to his miserable passions—­And if I said these are the consequences of civilization & turned to the savage world I saw only ignorance unrepaid by any noble feeling—­a mere animal, love of life joined to a low love of power & a fiendish love of destruction—­I saw a creature drawn on by his senses & his selfish passions but untouched by aught noble or even Human—­

And then when I sought for consolation in the various faculties man is possessed of & which I felt burning within me—­I found that spirit of union with love & beauty which formed my happiness & pride degraded into superstition & turned from its natural growth which could bring forth only good fruit:—­cruelty—­& intolerance & hard tyranny was grafted on its trunk & from it sprung fruit suitable to such grafts—­If I mingled with my fellow creatures was the voice I heard that of love & virtue or that of selfishness & vice, still misery was ever joined to it & the tears of mankind formed a vast sea ever blown on by its sighs & seldom illuminated by its smiles—­Such taking only one side of the picture & shutting wisdom from the view is a just portraiture of the creation as seen on earth

But when I compared the good & evil of the world & wished to divide them into two seperate principles I found them inextricably intwined together & I was again cast into perplexity & doubt—­I might have considered the earth as an imperfect formation where having bad materials to work on the Creator could only palliate the evil effects of his combinations but I saw a wanton malignity in many parts & particularly in the mind of man that baffled me a delight in mischief a love of evil for evils sake—­a siding of the multitude—­a dastardly applause which in their hearts the crowd gave to triumphant wick[ed]ness over lowly virtue that filled me with painful sensations.