v Butler on the Waste of Seeds. 57 



own time. I refer to the passage where he speaks of 

 the waste of seeds, as follows : * 



"The viciousness of the world is, in different 

 ways, the great trial 2 which renders it a state of 

 virtuous discipline to good men. That which appears 

 amidst the general corruption is, that there are some 

 persons who, having within them the principles of 

 amendment and recovery, attend to and follow the 

 notices of virtue and religion which are afforded 

 them; and that the present world is not only an 

 exercise of virtue in these persons, but an exercise of 

 it in ways and degrees peculiarly apt to improve it, 

 even beyond what would be by the exercise of it re- 

 quired in a perfectly virtuous society. But that the 

 present world does not actually become a state of 

 moral discipline to the generality that they do not 

 improve or grow better in it cannot be urged as a 

 proof that it was not intended for moral discipline, 

 by any who at all observe the analogy of nature. 

 For of the numerous seeds of vegetables which are 

 adapted to improve to maturity and perfection, we 

 do not see perhaps that one in a million actually does, 

 Yet no one will deny that those seeds which do attain 

 to that maturity and perfection answer the end for 

 which they were designed by nature. And I cannot 

 forbear adding, though it is not to the present pur- 

 pose, that the appearance of such an amazing waste 



1 Analogy, Fitzgerald's edition, p. 104. 



2 I have substituted trial for temptation, which latter word 

 has ceased to be used in this sense. 



