NATURAL THEOLOGY. 147 



to human welfare, or capable of being made, and, 

 m a great majority of instances, in fact made, 

 conducive to its happiness. These passions are 

 strong and general ; and, perhaps, would not an- 

 swer their purpose unless they were so. But 

 strength and generality, when it is expedient that 

 particular circumstances should be respected, be- 

 come, if left to themselves, excess and misdirec- 

 tion. From which excess and misdirection, the 

 vices of mankind (the causes, no doubt, of much 

 misery) appear to spring. This account, whilst 

 it shows us the principle of vice, shows us, at the 

 same time, the province of reason and of self- 

 government ; the want also of every support which 

 can be procured to either from the aids of reli- 

 gion ; and it shows this, without having recourse 

 to any native, gratuitous malignity in the hu.nan 

 constitution. Mr. Hume, in his posthumous dia- 

 logues, asserts, indeed, of idleness, or aversion to 

 labour, (which he states to lie at the root of a con- 

 siderable part of the evils which mankind suffer,) 

 that it is simply and merely bad. But how does 

 he distinguish idleness from the love of ease ? or 

 is he sure, that the love of ease in individuals it 

 not the chief foundation of social tranquillity? 

 It will be found, I believe, to be true, that in 

 every community there is a large class of its 

 members, whose idleness is the best quality about 

 them, being the corrective of other bad ones. If 

 it were possible, in every instance, to give a right 

 determination to industry, we could never have 



