280 THE GOODNESS OP THE DEITY. 



veniencics on the other, is the proper abode ot free, ration' 

 al, and active natures, bring the fittest to stimulate and ex- 

 ercise their faculties. The very refractoriness of the ob- 

 jects they have to deal with contributors to this purpose. 

 A world jn which nothing depended upon ourselves, how- 

 ever it might have suited an imagmary race of beings, would 

 not have suited manl^ind. Their skill, prudence, industry ; 

 their various ans, and their best attainments, from the ap- 

 plication of which tney draw, if not their highest, their most 

 permanent gratifications, would be insignificant, if things 

 could be eitner moulded by our volitions, or, of their owq 

 accord, conformed themselves to our views and wishes. 

 Now it is in this refractoriness that we discern the seed and 

 principle o( p /it/ sical evil, as far as it arises from that which 

 is external to us. 



Civil evils, or the evils of civil life, are much more easily 

 disposed of than physical evils; because they are, in truth, 

 of much less magnitude, and also because they result by a 

 kind of necessity, not only from the constitution of our na- 

 ture, but from a part of that constitution which no one 

 would wish to see alteied. The case is this. Mankind 

 will in every country breed up to a certain point of distress. 

 That point may be different in different coi»ntries or ages 

 according to the estailished usages of life in each. It will also 

 shift upon the scale, so as to adnut of a greater or less number 

 of inhabitants, according as the quantity of provision which 

 is either produced in the country or supplied to it from other 

 countries may happen to vary. But there must always be such 

 a point, and the species will always breed up to it. The or- 

 der of generation proceeds by something like a geometrical 

 progression. The increase of provision, under circumstan- 

 ces even the most advantageous, can only assume the form 

 of an arithmetic series. Whence it follows, that the pop- 

 ulation will always overtake the provision, will pass beyond 

 the line of plenty, and will continue to increase till check- 

 ed, by the difficulty of procuring subsistence.* >Such diffi- 

 culty, therefore, along with its attendant circumstances, 

 must be found in every old country ; and these circumstan- 

 ces constitute what we call poverty, which, necessarily, 

 imposes labour, servitude, restraint. 



It seems iinpossible to people a country with inhabitants 



who shall be all in easy circumstances. For suppose the 



thing to be done, there would be such marrying and giving 



in marriage amongst them, as would in a few years change 



* See a statement of this subjectj in a late treatise upon population. 



