202 THE IMMORTALITY OF ANIMALS 



appears as if the principle of sensibility, in a world 

 where evil predominates, is a huge misfortune, and 

 an ungracious gift, provided the creatures endued 

 with it have no interest in the benefits of a better 

 life. 



To bring a being into a state of unmixed happi- 

 ness, in any degree, can be no injury to it ; or into 

 a state of unmixed happiness, provided the happi- 

 ness certainly overbalances the contrary, and the 

 unhappy or suffering part be not greater than the 

 being would prefer in order to obtain the happiness 

 rather than lose it. 



Nor can any wrong be done by producing a be- 

 ing subject to more misery than happiness, if that 

 being has it in its own power to avoid the misery, 

 or so much of it as may leave the remainder of 

 misery not greater than what it would rather sus- 

 tain than miss the proportion of happiness. The 

 only case then, by which wrong can be done in the 

 production of any being, is where it is necessarily 

 and unavoidably made miserable without any 

 recompense or balance of that misery ; and such a 

 case is so grievous, so utterly inconceivable to all 

 reason, that the heart of a reasoning and consider- 

 ing man can scarce bear the thought of it. 



