266 
THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 
capacities must have been given, if the animal existed at 
all. Animal properties therefore, which fall under this de¬ 
scription, do not strictly prove the goodness of God: they 
may prove the existence of the Deity; they may prove a 
high degree of power and intelligence: but they do not 
prove his goodness: forasmuch as they must have been 
found in any creation which was capable of continuance, 
although it is possible to suppose, that such a creation 
might have been produced by a being, whose views rested 
upon misery. 
But there is a class of properties, which may be said to 
be superadded from an intention expressly directed to hap¬ 
piness; an intention to give a happy existence distinct from 
the general intention of providing the means of existence; 
and that is, of capacities for pleasure, in cases wherein, 
so far as the conservation of the individual or of the species 
is concerned, they were not wanted, or wherein the pur¬ 
pose might have been secured by the operation of pain. 
The provision w r hich is made of a variety of objects, not 
necessary to life, and ministering only to our pleasures; and 
the properties given to the necessaries of life themselves, 
by which they contribute to pleasure as well as preserva¬ 
tion; show a farther design than that of giving existence.* 
A single instance will make all this clear. Assuming 
the necessity of food for the support of animal life; it is re¬ 
quisite, that the animal be provided with organs, fitted for 
the procuring, receiving, and digesting of its food. It may 
also be necessary, that the animal be impelled by its sensa¬ 
tions to exert its organs. But the pain of hunger would do 
all this. Why add pleasure to the act of eating; sweetness 
and relish to food? Why a new and appropriate sense 
for the perception of the pleasure? Why should the juice 
of a peach, applied to the palate, affect the part so different¬ 
ly from what it does when rubbed upon the palm of the 
hand? This is a constitution, which, so far as appears to 
me, can be resolved into nothing but the pure benevolence 
of the Creator. Eating is necessary; but the pleasure at¬ 
tending it is not necessary; and that this pleasure depends 
not only upon our being in possession of the sense of taste, 
which is different from every other, but upon a particular 
* See this topic considered in Dr. Balguy’s Treatise upon the Divine 
Benevolence. This excellent author, first, I think, proposed it; and 
nearly in the terms in which it is here stated. Some other observations 
also under this head, are taken from that treatise. 
