NATURAL THEOLOGY. Ill 



they are found to produce serpents ; and in such 

 quantities, that some extensive plains are ahnost 

 entirely covered with them." These are the na- 

 tures appropriated to the situation. Let them en- 

 joy their existence; let them have their country. 

 Surface enough vi^ill be left to man, though his 

 numbers were increased a hundred-fold, and left 

 to him, where he might live exempt from these 

 annoyances. 



The SECOND CASE, viz. ih3it of animals devouring 

 one another, furnishes a consideration of much 

 larger extent. To judge whether, as a general 

 provision, this can be deemed an evil, even so far 

 as we understand its consequences, which, proba- 

 bly, is a partial understanding, the following re- 

 flections are fit to be attended to.^^ 



^ The subject of apparently conflicting contrivances, including 

 conflicting instincts, as well as apparently impeifect contrivances 

 and instincts, will be considered at large in the Appendix. The 

 progress of science is constantly diminishing the number of such 

 instances, as far as our ignorance of design goes. That some 

 conflict will continue ; in other words, that evil to a certain amount 

 will, after all deductions, be found to exist, cannot be doubted. 

 But that an immense preponderance of good exists in every depart- 

 ment of nature, both of matter and of mind, is so clear, that, ar- 

 guing as we do on every other subject, we have a right to impute 

 the perception of any evil at all to our own ignorance ; and to 

 conclude that, if we knew the whole system, and could extend 

 our comprehension to the entire plan of creation, we should no 

 longer believe there was evil at all. Of the different hypotheses 

 to which we may have recourse for explaining what we are unable 

 legitimately to solve, the Probationary State is one, and is the one 

 which appears to tally best with the facts. It is hardly necessary 



