The works of William Paley, with a life of the author

made, conducive to its happiness. These passions are strong and general; and, perhaps, would not answer their purpose unless they were so. But strength and generality, when it is expedient that particular circumstances should be respected, become, if left to themselves, excess and misdirection, From which excess and misdirection, 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 constitution. Mr. Hume, in his posthumous dialogues, asserts, indeed, of idleness, or aversion to labour (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 quality about them, being the corrective of other bad ones. If it were possible, in every instance, to give a right determination 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 incessant, universal, indefatigable activity. In the civil world, as well as in the material, it is the vis incrtia which keeps things in their places.

NATURAL THEOLOGY has ever been pressed with this question: Why, under the regency of a supreme and benevolent Will, should there be, in the world, so much, as there is, of the appearance of chance ?

The question in its whole compass lies beyond our reach: but there are not wanting, as in the origin of evil, answers which seem to have considerable weight in particular cases, and also to embrace a considerable number of cases.

I. There must be chance in the midst of design: by which we mean, that events which are not designed, necessarily arise from the pursuit of events which are designed. One man travelling to York, meets another man travelling to London. Their

meeting is by chance, is accidental, and so would be called and reckoned, though the journeys which produced the meeting were, both of them, undertaken with design and from deliberation. The meeting, though accidental, was nevertheless hypothetically necessary (which is the only sort of necessity that is intelligible): for if the two journeys were commenced at the time, pursued in the direction, and with the speed, in which and with which, they were in fact begun and performed, the meeting could not be avoided. There was not, therefore, the less necessity in it for its being by chance. Again, the rencounter might be most unfortunate, though the errands, upon which each party set out upon his journey, were the most innocent or the most laudable. The by effect may be unfavourable, without impeachment of the proper purpose, for the sake of which the train, from the operation of which these consequences ensued, was put in motion. Although no cause acts without a good purpose; accidental consequences, like these, may be either good or bad.

II. The appearance of chance will always bear a proportion to the ignorance of the observer. The cast of a die as regularly follows the laws of motion, as the going of a watch; yet, because we can trace the operation of those laws through the works and movements of the watch, and cannot trace them in the shaking and throwing of the die (though the laws be the same, and prevail equally in both cases,) we call the turning up of the number of the die chance, the pointing of the index of the watch, machinery, order, or by some name which excludes chance. It is the same in those events which depend upon the will of a free and rational agent. The verdict of a jury, the sentence of a judge, the resolution of an assembly, the issue of a contested election, will have more or less of the appearance of chance, might be more or less the subject of a wager, according as we were less or more acquainted with the reasons which influenced the deliberation. ence resides in the information of the observer, and not in the thing itself; which, in all the cases proposed, proceeds from intelligence, from mind, from counsel, from design.

The differ

Now when this one cause of the appearance of chance, viz. the ignorance of the observer, comes to be applied to the operations of the Deity, it is easy to foresee how fruitful it must prove of difficulties and of seeming confusion. It is only to think of

the Deity, to perceive what variety of objects, what distance of time, what extent of space and action, his counsels may, or rather must, comprehend. Can it be wondered at, that, of the purposes which dwell in such a mind as this, so small a part should be known to us? It is only necessary, therefore, to bear in our thought, that in proportion to the inadequateness of our information, will be the quantity, in the world, of apparent chance.

III. In a great variety of cases, and of cases comprehending numerous subdivisions, it appears, for many reasons, to be better that events rise up by chance, or, more properly speaking, with the appearance of chance, than according to any observable rule whatever. This is not seldom the case even in human arrangements. Each person's place and precedency, in a public meeting, may be determined by lot. Work and labour may be allotted. Tasks and burdens may be allotted:

-Operumque laborem Partibus æquabat justis, aut sorte trahebat.

Military service and station may be allotted. The distribution of provision may be made by lot, as it is in a sailor's mess; in some cases also, the distribution of favours may be made by lot. In all these cases, it seems to be acknowledged, that there are advantages in permitting events to chance, superior to those, which would or could arise from regulation. In all these cases also, though events rise up in the way of chance, it is by appointment that they do so.

In other events, and such as are independent of human will, the reasons for this preference of uncertainty to rule, appear to be still stronger. For example: it seems to be expedient that the period of human life should be uncertain. Did mortality follow any fixed rule, it would produce a security in those that were at a distance from it, which would lead to the greatest disorders; and a horror in those who approached it, similar to that which a condemned prisoner feels on the night before his execution. But, that death be uncertain, the young must sometimes die, as well as the old. Also were deaths never sudden, they who are in health would be too confident of life. The strong and the active, who want most to be warned and checked, would live without apprehension or restraint. On the other hand, were sudden deaths very frequent, the sense of constant jeopardy would interfere too much with the

degree of ease and enjoyment intended for us; and human life be too precarious for the business and interests which belong to it. There could not be dependence either upon our own lives, or the lives of those with whom we were connected, sufficient to carry on the regular offices of human society. The manner, therefore, in which death is made to occur, conduces to the purposes of admonition, without overthrowing the necessary stability of human affairs.

Disease being the forerunner of death, there is the same reason for its attacks coming upon us under the appearance of chance, as there is for uncertainty in the time of death itself.

The seasons are a mixture of regularity and chance. They are regular enough to authorize expectation, whilst their being, in a considerable degree, irregular, induces, on the part of the cultivators of the soil, a necessity for personal attendance, for activity, vigilance, precaution. It is this necessity which creates farmers; which divides the profit of the soil between the owner and the occupier; which by requiring expedients, by increasing employment, and by rewarding expenditure, promotes agricultural arts and agricultural life, of all modes of life the best, being the most conducive to health, to virtue, to enjoyment. I believe it to be found in fact, that where the soil is the most fruitful, and the seasons the most constant, there the condition of the cultivators of the earth is the most depressed. Uncertainty, therefore, has its use even to those who sometimes complain of it the most. Seasons of scarcity themselves are not without their advantages. They call forth new exertions; they set contrivance and ingenuity at work; they give birth to improvements in agriculture and economy; they promote the investigation and management of public resources.

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 different 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 society a diversity of education, which can only belong to an original diversity of circumstances. As this sort of disparity, which ought to take place from the beginning of life, must, ex hypothesi, 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 every thing which appertains to its distinctions. It may be the result of a beneficial rule, that the fortunes or honours of the father devolve 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 lottery. Inequalities, therefore, of fortune, at least the greatest 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, without 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 labour, must still form the mass of the community; otherwise the necessary labour 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 circumstances, but for a mixture of different faculties, tastes, and tempers. Activity and contemplation, restlessness and quiet, courage and timidity, ambition and contentedness, not to say even indolence and dulness, are all wanted in the world, all conduce to the well going on of human affairs, just as the rudder, the sails, and the ballast of a ship, all perform their part in the navigation. Now, since these characters require for their foundation different original talents, different dispositions, perhaps also different bodily constitutions; and since, likewise, it is apparently expedient, that they be promiscuously scattered amongst the different classes of society can the distribution of talents, dispositions, and the constitutions upon which they depend, be better made than by chance?

The opposites of apparent chance, are constancy and sensible interposition; every degree of secret direction being consistent with it. Now, of constancy, or of fixed and known rules, we have seen in some cases the inapplicability: and inconveniences which we do not see, might attend their application in other cases.

Of sensible interposition, we may be permitted to remark, that a Providence always and certainly distinguishable, would be neither more nor less than miracles rendered frequent and common. It is difficult to judge of the state into which this would throw us. It is enough to say, that it would cast us upon a quite different dispensation from that under which we live. It would be a total and radical change. And the change would deeply affect, or perhaps subvert, the whole conduct of human affairs. I can readily believe, that, other circumstances being adapted to it, such a state might be better than our present state. It may be the state of other beings; it may be ours hereafter. But the question with which we are now concerned is, how far it would be consistent with our condition, supposing it in other respects to remain as it is? And in this question there seems to be reasons of great moment on the negative side. For instance : so long as bodily labour continues, on so many accounts, to be necessary for the bulk of mankind, any dependency upon supernatural aid, by unfixing those motives which promote exertion, or by relaxing those habits which engender patient industry, might introduce negligence, inactivity, and disorder, into the most useful occupations of human life; and thereby deteriorate the condition of human life itself.

As moral agents, we should experience a still greater alteration; of which, more will be said under the next article.

Although therefore the Deity, who possesses the power of winding and turning, as he pleases, the course of causes which issue from himself, does in fact interpose to alter or intercept effects, which without such interposition would have taken place; yet it is by no means incredible, that his Providence, which always rests upon final good, may have made a reserve with respect to the manifestation of his interference, a part of the very plan which he has appointed for our terrestrial existence, and a part conformable with, or, in some sort, required by, other parts of the same plan. It is at any rate evident, that a large and ample pro

vince remains for the exercise of Providence, without its being naturally perceptible by us; because obscurity, when applied to the interruption of laws, bears a necessary proportion to the imperfection of our knowledge when applied to the laws themselves, or rather to the effects which these laws, under their various and incalculable combinations, would of their own accord produce. And if it be said, that the doctrine of Divine Providence, by reason of the ambiguity under which its exertions present themselves, can be attended with no practical influence upon our conduct; that, although we believe ever so firmly that there is a Providence, we must prepare, and provide, and act, as if there were none; I answer, that this is admitted; and that we further allege, that so to prepare, and so to provide, is consistent with the most perfect assurance of the reality of a Providence : and not only so, but that it is, probably, one advantage of the present state of our information, that our provisions and preparations are not disturbed by it. Or if it be still asked, of what use at all then is the doctrine, if it neither alter our measures nor regulate our conduct? I answer again, that it is of the greatest use, but that it is a doctrine of sentiment and piety, not (immediately at least) of action or conduct; that it applies to the consolation of men's minds, to their devotions, to the excitement of gratitude, the support of patience, the keeping alive and the strengthening of every motive for endeavouring to please our Maker; and that these are great uses.

OF ALL VIEWS under which human life has ever been considered, the most reasonable in my judgment is that, which regards it as a state of probation. If the course of the world was separated from the contrivances of nature, I do not know that it would be necessary to look for any other account of it, than what, if it may be called an account, is contained in the answer, that events rise up by chance. But since the contrivances of nature decidedly evince in tention; and since the course of the world and the contrivances of nature have the same author; we are, by the force of this connection, led to believe, that the appearance, under which events take place, is reconcileable with the supposition of design on the part of the Deity. It is enough that they be reconcileable with this supposition; and it is undoubtedly true, that they may be reconcileable, though we cannot reconcile them. The mind, however, which con

templates the works of nature, and, in those works, sees so much of means directed to ends, of beneficial effects brought about by wise expedients, of concerted trains of causes terminating in the happiest results; so much, in a word, of counsel, intention, and benevolence; a mind, I say, drawn into the habit of thought which these observations excite, can hardly turn its view to the condition of our own species, without endeavouring to suggest to itself some purpose, some design, for which the state in which we are placed is fitted, and which it is made to serve. Now we assert the most probable supposition to be, that it is a state of moral probation; and that many things in it suit with this hypothesis, which suit no other. It is not a state of unmixed happiness, or of happiness simply; it is not a state of designed misery, or of misery simply: it is not a state of retribution: it is not a state of punishment. It suits with none of these suppositions. It accords much better with the idea of its being a condition calculated for the production, exercise, and improvement of moral qualities, with a view to a future state, in which these qualities, after being so produced, exercised, and improved, may, by a new and more favouring constitution of things, receive their reward, or become their own. If it be said, that this is to enter upon a religious rather than a philosophical consideration; I answer, that the name of Religion ought to form no objection, if it shall turn out to be the case, that the more religious our views are, the more probability they contain. The degree of beneficence, of benevolent intention, and of power, exercised in the construction of sensitive beings, goes strongly in favour, not only of a creative, but of a continuing care, that is, of a ruling Providence. The degree of chance which appears to prevail in the world, requires to be reconciled with this hypothesis. Now it is one thing to maintain the doctrine of Providence along with that of a future state, and another thing without it. my opinion, the two doctrines must stand or fall together. For although more of this apparent chance may perhaps, upon other principles, be accounted for, than is generally supposed, yet a future state alone rectifies all disorders: and if it can be shown, that the appearance of disorder is consistent with the uses of life as a preparatory state, or that in some respects it promotes these uses, then, so far as this hypothesis may be accepted, the ground of the difficulty is done away.

In the wide scale of human condition, there is not perhaps one of its manifold diversities, which does not bear upon the design here suggested. Virtue is infinitely various. There is no situation in which a rational being is placed, from that of the best instructed Christian, down to the condition of the rudest barbarian, which affords not room for moral agency; for the acquisition, exercise, and display, of voluntary qualities, good and bad. Health and sickness, enjoyment and suffering, riches and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, power and subjection, liberty and bondage, civilisation and barbarity, have all their offices and duties, all serve for the formation of character for when we speak of a state of trial, it must be remembered, that characters are not only tried, or proved, or detected, but that they are generated also, and formed, by circumstances. The best dispositions may subsist under the most depressed, the most afflicted fortunes. A West Indian slave, who, amidst his wrongs, retains his benevolence, I, for my part, look upon as amongst the foremost of human candidates for the rewards of virtue. The kind master of such a slave, that is, he who, in the exercise of an inordinate authority, postpones, in any degree, his own interest to his slave's comfort, is likewise a meritorious character: but still he is inferior to his slave. All however which I contend for, is, that these destinies, opposite as they may be in every other view, are both trials; and equally such. The observation may be applied to every other condition; to the whole range of the scale, not excepting even its lowest extremity. Savages appear to us all alike; but it is owing to the distance at which we view savage life, that we perceive in it no discrimination of character. I make no doubt, but that moral qualities, both good and bad, are called into action as much, and that they subsist in as great variety, in these inartificial societies, as they are, or do, in polished life. Certain at least it is, that the good and ill treatment which each individual meets with, depends more upon the choice and voluntary conduct of those about him, than it does or ought to do, under regular civil institutions, and the coercion of public laws. So again, to turn our eyes to the other end of the scale; namely; that part of it which is occupied by mankind enjoying the benefits of learning, together with the lights of revelation; there also, the advantage is all along probationary. Christianity itself, I mean the revelation of Chris

tianity, is not only a blessing, but a trial It is one of the diversified means by which the character is exercised and they who require of Christianity, that the revelation of it should be universal, may possibly be found to require, that one species of probation should be adopted, if not to the exclusion of others, at least to the narrowing of that variety which the wisdom of the Deity hath appointed to this part of his moral economy.*

Now if this supposition be well founded; that is, if it be true, that our ultimate, or our most permanent happiness, will depend, not upon the temporary condition into which we are cast, but upon our behaviour in it; then is it a much more fit subject of chance than we usually allow or apprehend it to be, in what manner the variety of external circumstances, which subsist in the human world, is distributed amongst the individuals of the species. This life being a state of probation, it is immaterial," says Rousseau," what kind of trials we experience in it, provided they produce their effects." Of two agents who stand indifferent to the moral Governor of the universe, one may be exercised by riches, the other by poverty. The treatment of these two shall appear to be very opposite, whilst in truth it is the same: for though, in many respects, there be great disparity between the conditions assigned, in one main article there may be none, viz. in that they are alike trials; have both their duties and temptations, not less arduous or less dangerous in one case than the other; so that if the final award follow the character, the original distribution of the circumstances under which that character is formed, may be defended upon principles not only of justice but of equality. What hinders, therefore, but that mankind may draw lots for their condition? They take their portion of faculties and opportunities, as any unknown cause, or concourse of causes, or as causes acting for other purposes, may happen to set them out; but the event is

The reader will observe, that I speak of the revelation of Christianity as distinct from Christianity itself. The dispensation may al ready be universal. That part of mankind which never heard of Christ's name, may nevertheless be redeemed, that is, be placed in a better condition, with respect to their future state, by his intervention; may be the objects of his benignity and intercession, as well as of the propitiatory virtue of his passion. But this is not "natural theology;" therefore I will not dwell longer upon it.

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