Mediation, in Physical Evils
Physical evils are alleviated by mediatorial processes inherent in nature and healing.
Physical evils are constantly alleviated or eradicated by some mediatorial process. The bruised or wounded flesh calls into play a latent power of healing in the dispersion of unhealthy humors, the formation of lymph, and the filling-up of the orifice or the closing of the wound. A broken bone will divert from the ordinary currents of animal life the phosphate of lime which may be necessary for its reparation. An exhalation of noxious gases meets with its mediatorial corrective in the principle of gaseous diffusion, which dilutes the subtle poison, and spreads it over so wide an area as to render it comparatively harmless. When vegetation is parched and withered, the air becomes the mediating agent which conveys to it the refreshing showers. When opposing forces and the "negative" and the "positive" hold apart in their isolation, conduction becomes the mediatorial, the combining power, that mingles them into one; and, when a satellite or a planet has deviated widely from its mean orbital path, a counter attraction becomes the mediator, that preserves it under the influence of its primary. Rugg.