280 
THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 
tions operating to the destruction of their countries, or by 
other instances of misconduct either in individuals or soci¬ 
eties, are all to be resolved into the character of man as a 
free agent. Free agency in its very essence contains lia¬ 
bility to abuse. Yet, if you deprive man of his free agency, 
you subvert his nature. You may have order from him and 
regularity, as you may from the tides or the trade-winds, 
but you put an end to his moral character, to virtue, to merit, 
to accountableness, to the use indeed of reason. To which 
must be added the observation, that even the bad qualities 
of mankind have an origin in their good ones. The case 
is this: human passions are eithermecessary to human wel¬ 
fare, or capable of being made, and, in 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 circum¬ 
stances should be respected, become, if left to themselves, 
excess and misdirection. From which excess and misdi¬ 
rection, 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 religion; and it shows this, without having recourse 
to any native gratuitous malignity in the human constitu¬ 
tion. Mr. Hume, in his posthumous dialogues, asserts 
indeed of idleness, or aversion to labor (which he states to 
lie at the root of a considerable 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 is 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 qual¬ 
ity about them, being the corrective of other bad ones. 
If it were possible, in every instance, to give a right de¬ 
termination to industry, we could never have too much of 
it. But this is not possible, if men are to be free. And 
without this, nothing would be so dangerous as an inces¬ 
sant, universal, indefatigable activity. In the civil world, 
as well as in the material, it is the vis inertiee which keeps 
things in their places. 
