128 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



is, in other words, the goodness of its Author to- 

 wards his sensitive creation. 



Rational natures also, as such, exhibit qualities 

 which help to confirm the truth of our position. 

 The degree of understanding found in mankind is 

 usually much greater than what is necessary for 

 mere preservation. The pleasure of choosing for 

 themselves, and of prosecuting the object of their 

 choice, should seem to be an original source of 

 enjoyment. The pleasures received from things, 

 great, beautiful, or new, from imitation, or from 

 the liberal arts, are, in some measure, not only su- 

 peradded, but unmixed, gratifications, having no 

 pains to balance them.* 



I do not know whether our attachment to pro- 

 perty be not something more than the mere dictate 

 of reason, or even than the mere effect of associa- 

 tion. Property communicates a charm to what- 

 ever is the object of it. It is the first of our ab- 

 stract ideas ; it cleaves to us the closest and the 

 longest. It endears to the child its plaything, to 

 the peasant his cottage, to the landholder his estate. 

 It supplies the place of prospect and scenery. 

 Instead of coveting the beauty of distant situations, 

 it teaches every man to find it in his own. It 

 gives boldness and grandeur to plains and fens, 

 tinge and colouring to clays and fallows. 



All these considerations come in aid of our 

 second proposition. The reader will now bear in 



* Balguy on the Divine Benevolence 



