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THE GOODNESS OF THE DEITY. 
Again; there are strong intelligible reasons, why there 
should exist in human society great disparity of wealth 
and station; not only as these things are acquired in dif¬ 
ferent degrees, but at the first setting out of life. In order, 
for instance, to answer the various demands of civil life, 
there ought to be amongst the members of every civil soci¬ 
ety a diversity of education, which can only belong to an 
original diversity of circumstances. As this sort of dispar¬ 
ity, which ought to take place from the beginning of life, 
must, ex hypothesis be previous to the merit or demerit of 
the persons upon whom it falls, can it be better disposed of 
than by chance? Parentage is that sort of chance: yet it 
is the commanding circumstance which in general fixes 
each man’s place in civil life, along with everything which 
appertains to its distinctions. It may be the result of a 
beneficial rule that the fortunes or honors of the father de¬ 
volve upon the son; and, as it should seem, of a still more 
necessary rule, that the low or laborious condition of the 
parent be communicated to his family; but with respect to 
the successor himself, it is the drawing of a ticket in a lot¬ 
tery. Inequalities therefore of fortune, at least the great¬ 
est part of them, viz. those which attend us from our birth, 
and depend upon our birth, may be left, as they are left, to 
chance, without any just cause for questioning the regency 
of a supreme Disposer of events. 
But not only the donation, when by the necessity of the 
case they must be gifts, but even the acquirability of civil 
advantages, ought perhaps, in a considerable degree, to lie 
at the mercy of chance. Some would have all the virtuous 
rich, or at least removed from the evils of poverty, with¬ 
out perceiving, I suppose, the consequence, that all the 
poor must be wicked. And how such a society could be 
kept in subjection to government, has not been shown; 
for the poor, that is, they who seek their subsistence by 
constant manual labor, must still form the mass of the com¬ 
munity; otherwise the necessary labor of life could not be 
carried on; the work would not be done, which the wants 
of mankind, in a state of civilisation, and still more in a 
state of refinement, require to be done. 
It appears to be also true, that the exigencies of social 
life call not only for an original diversity of external circum¬ 
stances, but for a mixture of different faculties, tastes, and 
tempers. Activity and contemplation, restlessness and qui¬ 
et, courage and timidity, ambition and contentedness, not 
to say even indolence and dulness, are all wanted in the 
