aooDNi!:ss of the deity. 329 



nnacconipanied by privileges injurious or oppressive to the 

 rest of the community, are such as may, even by the most 

 depressed ranks, be endured with very Uttle prejudice to 

 their comfort. 



The mischiefs of which mankind are the occasion to one 

 another, by their private wickednesses and cruelties ; by 

 tyrannical exercises of power ; by rebelhons against just au- 

 thority ; by wars ; by national jealousies and competitions 

 operating to the destruction of third countries ; or by other 

 instances of misconduct either in individuals or societies, are 

 all to be resolved into the character of man as a/ree agent. 

 Free agency, in its very essence, contains liability to abuse. 

 Yet, if you deprive man of his free agency, you subvert his 

 nature. You may have order from him and regularity, as 

 you may from the tides or the trade-winds, but you put an 

 end to his moral character, to virtue, to merit, to accounta- 

 bleness, to the use indeed of reason. To which must be 

 added the observation, that even the bad qualities of mankind 

 have an origin in their good ones. The case is this : human 

 passions are either necessary to human welfare, or capable of 

 being made, and, in a great majority of instances, in fact arc 

 made, conducive to its happiness. These passions are strong 

 and general ; and perhaps would not answer their purpose 

 unless they were so. But strength and generality, when it 

 is expedient that particular circumstances should be respeot 

 ed, become, if left to themselves, excess and misdirection : 

 from which excess and misdirection, the vices of mankind, 

 the causes, no doubt, of much misery, appear to spring. 

 This account, while it shows us the principle of vice, shows 

 us, at the same time, the province of reason and of self-gcv 

 eriiment ; the want also of every support which can be pro- 

 cured to either from the aids of religion ; and it shows tiiis, 

 without having recourse to any native, gratuitous malignity 

 in the human constitution. Mr. Hume, in his posthumous 

 dialogues, asserts, indeed, oi idleness, or aversion to labor—- 

 wliich he states to lie at the root of a considerable part of 



