ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. 



441 



taht we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to 

 eat, not to ache : their aching now and then is incidental to the contri- 

 vance, perhaps inseparable from it ; or even, if you will, let it be called 

 a defect in the contrivance ; but it is not the object of it. This is a dis- 

 tinction which well deserves to be attended to. In describing implements 

 of husbandry, you would hardly say of the sickle that it is made to cut the 

 reaper's fingers, though from the construction of the instrument, and the 

 manner of using it, this mischief often happens. But if you had occa- 

 sion to describe instruments of torture or execution, this engine, you 

 would say, is to extend the sinews ; this to dislocate the joints ; this to 

 break the bones ; this to scorch the soles of the feet. Here pain and 

 misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this 

 sort is to be found in the works of nature. W e never discover a train of 

 contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered 

 a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease ; or in 

 explaining the parts of the human body, ever said, this is to irritate ; this 

 to inflame ; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys ; this gland 

 to secrete the humour which forms the gout. If by chance he come at a 

 part of which he knows not the use, the most that he can say is that it is 

 useless. No one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to 

 annoy, or to torment. Since, then, God has called forth his consummate 

 wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, and the world appears 

 to have been constituted with this design at first, so long as this constitu- 

 tion is upholden by him, we must in reason su])pose the same design to 

 continue."* 



A thousand other examples might be added, but it is unnecessary. The 

 conclusion is clear, and it is most important : we obtain from the light of 

 nature, or the exercise of our own reason, irresistible proofs of the divine 

 benevolence, irresistible proofs that God has made man to make him 

 happy : or, in other vv'ords, tliat human happiness is the will of God. 



We are now, then, prepared to enter upon our last question : Is a 

 course of virtue the path to happiness, for if it be, it must necessarily be 

 the will of God to walk in it ? Or, having proved the terms to be co-or- 

 dinate, we may propose the question conversely. Is a course of virtue 

 the will of God ? For if it be, it must necessarily conduct to human 

 happiness. Under either view of the question, the general proposition 

 will be as follows: God has willed human happiness, and he has willed it 

 to be obtained by a course of virtue. God, then, is the author, happiness 

 the end, and virtue the means. 



Let us take the question before us in its first view, Is human virtue the 

 means of human happiness ? 



Had we time it might perhaps be expedient to enter into a definition of 

 the terms ; but v^^e have not time, and I must refer therefore to the 

 general understanding of mankind upon this subject : which I may do 

 the more safely, because, though the terms virtue and happiness are 

 strikingly comprehensive, there is no great difierence of opinion either 

 among the learned or the unlearned concerning their general outlines or 

 more prominent characteristics. 



The- question, then, ought to be argued in relation to the happiness 

 both of the individual and of the community ; or, in other words, to the 

 happiness of man in liis private and his social C'i})acity. 



* 3Ior. and Pol. Phil. vol. i. ch. v. 

 56 



