LETTER III. On Natural EVILS. I SIR, free fen Shall now lay before you my timents concerning the Origin of Natural Evils, by which I understand the fufferings of fenfitive Beings only; for tempefts, inundations and earthquakes, with all the diforders of the material World, are no farther Evils than as they affect the fenfitive: fo that under this head can be only comprehended pains of body, and inquietudes of mind. That these are real Evils, I readily acknowledge; and if any one is philofopher enough enough to doubt of it, I fhall only beg leave to refer him to a fevere fit of fickness, or a tedious law fuit, for farther fatisfaction. be The production of Happiness feems to be the only motive that could induce infinite Goodness to exert infinite power to create all things: for, to fay truth, Happiness is the only thing of real value: in existence; neither riches, nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance but as they contribute to its production. All these are in themfelves neither Good nor Evil; Happiness alone is their great end, and they defirable only as they tend o promote it. Moft astonishing therefore it must appear to every one who to looks looks round him, to obferve all creatures blefs'd with life and fenfation, that is, all creatures made capable of Happiness, at the fame time by their own natures con demned to innumerable and unavoidable miferies. Whence can it proceed, that Providence should thus feem to countered act his own benevolents intentions To? what ftrange and invifible caufe are all thefe numerous and invincible Evils indebted for their Exiftence? If God is a good and benevolent Being, what end could he propose from creation, but the propagation of Happiness? and if Happiness is the end of all exiftence, why are not all creatures that do exist happy h The true folution of this important, queftion, fo long and fo vainly fearched for by the philofophers of all ages and all all countries, I take to be at laft no more than this, That these real Evils proceed from the fame fource as thofe imaginary ones of Imperfection before treated of, namely, from that fubordination, without which no created fyftem can subsist ; all fubordination implying imperfection, all Imperfection Evil, and all Evil fome kind of inconvenience or fuffering; fo that there must be particular inconve niences and fufferings annexed to every particular rank of created Beings by the circumstances of things, and their modes of exiftence. Most of those to which we ourselves are liable may be easily shewn to be of this kind, the effects only of human nature, and the station Man occupies in the universe and therefore their Origin is plainly deducible from neceffity; that is, they could not have been prevented ... without |