206 HUME ix 



" If the reason of man gives him great superiority above 

 other animals, his necessities are proportionally multiplied 

 upon him ; his whole time, his whole capacity, activity, 

 courage, and passion, find sufficient employment in fenc- 

 ing against the miseries of his present condition ; and fre- 

 quently, nay, almost always, are too slender for the busi- 

 ness assigned them. A pair of shoes, perhaps, was never 

 yet wrought to the highest degree of perfection that com- 

 modity is capable of attaining ; yet it is necessary, at least 

 very useful, that there should be some politicians and 

 moralists, even some geometers, poets and philosophers, 

 among mankind. The powers of men are no more superior 

 to their wants, considered merely in this life, than those of 

 foxes and hares are, compared to their wants and to their 

 period of existence. The inference from parity of reason is 

 therefore obvious." 



In short, Hume argues that, if the faculties 

 with which we are endowed are unable to discover 

 a future state, and if the most attentive considera- 

 tion of their nature serves to show that they are 

 adapted to this life and nothing more, it is surely 

 inconsistent with any conception of justice that we 

 should be dealt with as if we had, all along, 

 had a clear knowledge of the fact thus carefully 

 concealed from us. What should we think of the 

 justice of a father, who gave his son every reason 

 to suppose that a trivial fault would only be 

 visited by a box on the ear; and then, years after- 

 wards, put him on the rack for a week for the same 

 fault? 



Again, the suggestion arises, if God is the 

 cause of all things, he is responsible for evil as 



