VARIETIES OP MANKIND. 461 



and, as the subject has not been made by myself a matter of ori- 

 ginal research and is far too extensive to be handled here as it 



but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are con- 

 trived to eat, not to ache ; their aching now and then is incidental to the con- 

 trivance, perhaps inseparable from it, or even, if you will, let it be called a 

 defect in the contrivance ; but it is not the object of it. This is a distinction 

 which well deserves to be attended to. In describing implements of husbandry, 

 you would hardly say of the sickle, that it is made to cut the reaper's fingers, 

 though, from the construction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, 

 this mischief often happens. But if you had occasion to describe instruments 

 of torture or execution, this engine you would say, is to extend the sinews ; this 

 to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this to scorch the soles of the. 

 feet. Here pain and miser}' are the very objects of the contrivance. Now 

 nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover 

 a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever dis- 

 covered a system of organisation (i. e. no species of system of organisation, for 

 the laws of the formation of an individual are the general laws of the species to 

 which it belongs) calculated to produce pain and disease ; or in explaining the 

 parts of the human body, ever said, this is to irritate ; this to inflame ; this 

 duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys ; this gland to secrete the humour 

 which forms gout. If by chance he come at a part of which he knows not the 

 use, the most he can say is, that it is useless : no one ever suspects that it is 

 put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment. Since then God hath called 

 forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, and 

 the world appears to have been constituted with this design at first, so long as 

 this constitution is upholden by Him, we must in reason suppose the same de- 

 sign to continue." Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 76. 



" The evil and the good," says Bishop Watson, " necessarily spring from 

 those laws of matter and motion, to which we and all other animals inhabiting 

 this earth are now subjected ; nor, whilst these laws subsist, is it possible that 

 the evil could have been avoided and yet the good produced ; they must of ne- 

 cessity both exist together ; and if the good outweighs the evil (as it unques- 

 tionably does, if we take into consideration the whole of any species) we may 

 be certain that a benevolent Being is the author of both. 



" Unanimated matter is incapable of either pleasure or pain ; it cannot be the 

 subject of either good or evil. But all the parts of this terraqueous globe, and 

 the air which surrounds it, are filled with various species of animals, all of them, 

 collectively taken, deriving pleasure from their existence. Now pleasurable 

 sensations are a positive good derived from God having animated a certain por- 

 tion of matter ; the quantity of this good wc know not how to estimate, but we 



