Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1878-07-26
Folly Of Fatalisuu.

1t sounds almost like a Jest, and yet it
is grave and veritable fact, that there
is no creed SO fatal to the holder as that
Of the fatalist. Nothing can be so hurt
full to q mans welfare, or so destructive
of his energy and force of character, as
the belief that he has no power over his
own destiny, and that do what he may
he cannot altar in the slightest degree
the ordained course of events. No per-
son is so utterly weak and worthless as
he who is content to fold his hands and
say with the Italian, "Che sara sara"
What will be will be. To believe that
There's divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them now we Will"
And not only to believe it, but to con-
sistently act up to that belief would,
unless we are very much mistaken, soon
lead US to surmise that Destiny had in
tended US to become the inmates OF a
work-hOuse. Fortunately there are few,
if any, in our country who persistently
regulate their conduct by such creed
as this, though there are many who are
fond of trusting 10 Providence, and who,
like Mr.. Micawber, are always waiting
for something to turn up. For such per-
sons nothing ever does turn up, and in
the end we generally find them grieVing
bitterly over their 'ill luck" and COM
planning that their neighbors are more
fortunate than they are. Possibly they
will tell us that the stars under which
they were born are to blame, or that by
some mischance or other Providence has
not provided for them in the handsome
manner they could have wished. They
forget the apothegm of the Latin poet,
Appius: "Fdber gltiSque fortuna slL8,"
Zach man is the artiicer of his own
fortune); or, to use the words of Bacon:
'OThe mold of a mans fortune is chiefly
in his own hands," Dame Providence
does not build bridges or erect houses;
we have never seen her plowing the
fields or manufacturing apparel, and the
gossip we hear about her leads us to sus-
pect that she is only fatalism passing
under different name. Like Penelope
with her web, she cotinually battles our
eager expectations by undoing at one
time the good she has done for us at
another. Since the days of that inexor-
able trinity, Clotho, Lachesis, and Afro
DOS, the Fates have borne many names
and have wandered through many lands,
but they are still the same ill-Omened
DAUGHTERS of NoX and Erebus, the off
spring of night and darkness, or ignor-
alee and superstition. Oracles, angury,
astrology, the belief In destiny and pre-,
destination, portents, providence, for
tune, and fortune-telling, inevitable ne
cessity or extreme necessitarianism
(such as Robert Owen believed in)-all
these are but different forms of fatalism;
they are the various costumes that she
has during past ages been pleased to put
on. With the ancient Greeks, under
the name of Moira or Destiny, Fate was
held to be more powerful than the gods,
and stronger than Zeus himself. The
literature of the Latin race is colored to
the very core by the fatalistic creed, and
the Oriental races of the present day,
the Turk and the Persian, the Mussul-
man and the Hindoo, still believe that,
"on two daysit steads not to run from thy grave
The appointed and the unappointed day;
On the hrst neither balm nor physician can save.
MOI thee on the second the universe slay."