THE GOODNESS OF 1HE5 DEITY. 
275 
led to execution, and the calm expiring of a patient at the 
close of his disease. Death to him is only the last of a 
long train of changes; in his progress through which, it is 
possible that he may experience no shocks or sudden tran¬ 
sitions. 
Death itself, as a mode of removal and of succession, is 
so connected with the whole order of our animal world, that 
almost everything in that world must be changed, to be 
able to do without it. It may seem likewise impossible to 
separate the fear of death from the enjoyment of life, or 
the perception of that fear from rational natures. Brutes 
are, in a great measure, delivered from all anxiety on this 
account by the inferiority of their faculties; or rather, they 
seem to be armed with the apprehension of death just suf¬ 
ficiently to put them upon the means of preservation, and 
no farther. But would a human being wish to purchase 
this immunity, at the expense of those mental powers 
which enable him to look forward to the future? 
Death implies separation: and the loss of those whom 
we love must necessarily be accompanied with pain. To 
the brute creation, nature seems to have stepped in with 
some secret provision for their relief, under the rupture of 
their attachments. In their instincts towards their off¬ 
spring, and of their offspring to them, I have often been 
surprised to observe how ardently they love, and how soon 
they forget. The pertinacity of human sorrow (upon 
which, time also, at length, lays its softening hand) is 
probably, therefore, in some manner connected with the 
qualities of our rational or moral nature. One thing how¬ 
ever is clear, viz. that it is better that we should possess 
affections, the sources of so many virtues and so many 
joys, although they be exposed to the incidents of life, as 
well as the interruptions of mortality, than, by the want of 
ftiem, be reduced to a state of selfishness, apathy, and 
quietism. 
Of other external evils, (still confining ourselves to 
what are called physical or natural evils,) a considerable 
part come within the scope of the following observation: 
The great principle of human satisfaction is engagement. 
It is a most just distinction, which the late Mr. Tucker has 
dwelt upon so largely in his works, between pleasures in 
which we are passive, and pleasures in which we are ac¬ 
tive. And, I believe, every attentive observer of human 
life will assent to his position, that however grateful the 
sensations may occasionally be in which we are passive, it 
