226 HUME x 



its climax in the ascription of necessary goodness 

 to the Deity. 



To the statement of another consequence of the 

 necessarian doctrine, that, if there be a God, he 

 must be the cause of all evil as well as of all good, 

 Hume gives no real reply probably because none 

 is possible. But then, if this conclusion is dis- 

 tinctly and unquestionably deducible from the 

 doctrine of necessity, it is no less unquestionably 

 a direct consequence of every known form 

 of monotheism. If God is the cause of all things, 

 he must be the cause of evil among the rest; if 

 he is omniscent, he must have the fore-knowledge 

 of evil; if he is almighty, he must possess the 

 power of preventing, or of extinguishing evil. 

 And to say that an all-knowing and all-powerful 

 being is not responsible for what happens, because 

 he only permits it, is, under its intellectual aspect, 

 a piece of childish sophistry; while, as to the 

 moral look of it, one has only to ask any decently 

 honourable man, whether, under like circum- 

 stances, he would try to get rid of his responsibility 

 by such a plea. 



Humes " Inquiry " appeared in 1748. He does 

 not refer to Anthony Collins' essay on Liberty, 

 published thirty-three years before, in which the 

 same question is treated to the same effect, with 

 singular force and lucidity. It may be said, per- 

 haps, that it is not wonderful that the two free- 

 thinkers should follow the same line of reasoning; 



