THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 281 



the face of affairs entirely ; i. e. as would increase the con- 

 sumption of tliose articles, which supplied the natural or 

 habitual wants of the countrj?, to such a degree of scarcity, 

 as must leave the o;reatest part of tire inhabitants unable to 

 procure them without toilsome endeavours, or, out of the dif- 

 ferent kinds ofthese articles, to procure any kind except that 

 which was most easily produced. And this, in fact, de- 

 scribes tiie condition of the mass of the community in all 

 countries; a condition unavoidably, as it should seem, re- 

 sulting from the provision which is made in the human, in 

 common with all aniuial constitutions, for the perpetuity 

 and multiplication of tne species 



It need not however dishearten any endeavours for the 

 public service, to know that popabition naturally treads up- 

 on the heels of improvement. If the condition of a people 

 be meliorated, the consequence wiil be either that t\ie?nea?i 

 happiness wiii be increased, or a greater number partake of 

 it ; or, which is most likely to happen, that both effects will 

 take place together. There may be limits fixed by nature 

 to both, bur they are limits not yet attained, nor even ap- 

 proached, in any country of the world. 



And wnen we speak of limits at all, we have respect on- 

 ly to provisions for aniuial wants. There arc sources, and 

 means, and auxiliaries, and augmentations of human hap- 

 piness, communicable without restriction of numbers ; as 

 capable of being possessed by a thousand persons, as by 

 one. Such are those which flow from a mild, contrasted 

 with a tyrannic government, whether civil or domestic ; those 

 which spring from religion ; those which grow out of a 

 sense of security , those which depend upon habits of vir- 

 tue, sobriety, moderation, order ; those, lastly, which are 

 found in the possession of well directed tastes and desires, 

 compared with the dominion of totmenting, pernicious, con- 

 tradictory, unsatisfied, and unsatisfiabie passions. 



The distinctions of civil life are apt enough to be re- 

 garded as evils, by those who sit under them : but in my 

 opinion, with very little reason 



In the first place the advantages which the higher con- 

 ditions of life are supposed to confer, bear no proportion in 

 value to the advantages which are bestowed by nature. 

 The gifts of nature always surpass the gifts of fortune. How 

 much, for example, is activity better than attendance ; beau- 

 ty, than dress ; appetite, digestion, and tranquil Oowels, than 

 all the studies of cookery, or than the most costly compila- 

 tion of forced or farfetched dainties ? 



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