132 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



to complain, that a scale of being was appointed 

 in nature ; for which appointment there appear to 

 be reasons of wisdom and goodness. 



In like manner Jiiiiteness, or what is resolvable 

 into finiteness, in inanimate subjects, can never be 

 a just subject of complaint ; because if it were ever 

 so, it would be always so ; we mean, that we can 

 never reasonably demand that things should be 

 larger or more, when the same demand might be 

 made, whatever the quantity or number was. 



And to me it seems that the sense of mankind 

 has so far acquiesced in these reasons, as that we 

 seldom complain of evils of this class, when we 

 clearly perceive them to be such. What I have 

 to add, therefore, is, that we ought not to com- 

 plain of some other evils, which stand upon the 

 same foot of vindication as evils of confessed im- 

 perfection. We never complain, that the globe 

 of our earth is too small : nor should we complain, 

 if it were even much smaller. But where is the 

 difference to us, between a less globe, and part of 

 the present being uninhabitable ? The inhabitants 

 of an island may be apt enough to murmur at the 

 sterility of some parts of it, against its rocks, or 

 sands, or swamps : but no one thinks himself au- 

 thorized to murmur, simply because the island is 

 not larger than it is. Yet these are the same 

 griefs. 



The above are the two metaphysical answers 

 which have been given to this great question. 

 They are not the worse for being metaphysical. 



