driven by hunger to others, they are led by the pleasure of taste to a few particular plants alone : and all this, as it should seem, independently of habit or imitation.

But should we accept the third hypothesis, and even carry it so far, as to ascribe every thing which concerns the question to habit, (as in certain species, the human species most particularly, there is reason to attribute something,) we have then before us an animal capacity, not less perhaps to be admired than the native congruities which the other scheme adopts. It cannot be shown to result from any fixed necessity in nature, that what is frequently applied to the senses should of course become agreeable to them. It is, so far as it subsists, a power of accommodation provided in these senses by the Author of their structure, and forms a part of their perfection.

In whichever way we regard the senses, they appear to be specific gifts, ministering, not only to preservation, but to pleasure. But what we usually call the senses, are probably themselves far from being the only vehicles of enjoyment, or the whole of our constitution which is calculated for the same purpose. We have many internal sensations of the most agreeable kind, hardly referable to any of the five senses. Some physiologists have holden, that all secretion is pleasurable; and that the complacency which in health, without any external assignable object to excite it, we derive from life itself, is the effect of our secre

All this may be

tions going on well within us. true, but if true, what reason can be assigned for it, except the will of the Creator? It may reasonably be asked, Why is any thing a pleasure? and I know no answer which can be returned to the question, but that which refers it to appointment.

We can give no account whatever of our pleasures in the simple and original perception; and, even when physical sensations are assumed, we can seldom account for them in the secondary and complicated shapes in which they take the name of diversions. I never yet met with a sportsman, who could tell me in what the sport consisted; who could resolve it into its principle, and state that principle. I have been a great follower of fishing myself, and in its cheerful solitude have passed some of the happiest hours of a sufficiently happy life; but to this moment, I could never trace out the source of the pleasure which it afforded me.

The "quantum in rebus inane!" whether applied to our amusements or to our graver pursuits, (to which in truth it sometimes equally belongs,) is always an unjust complaint. If trifles engage, and if trifles make us happy, the true reflection suggested by the experiment, is upon the tendency of nature to gratification and enjoyment; which is, in other words, the goodness of its Author towards his sensitive creation.

Rational natures also, as such, exhibit qualities which help to confirm the truth of our position.

The degree of understanding found in mankind, is usually much greater than what is necessary for mere preservation. The pleasure of choosing for themselves, and of prosecuting the object of their choice, should seem to be an original source of enjoyment. The pleasures received from things, great, beautiful, or new, from imitation, or from the liberal arts, are in some measure not only superadded, but unmixed, gratifications, having no pains to balance them.*

I do not know whether our attachment to property be not something more than the mere dictate of reason, or even than the mere effect of association. Property communicates a charm to whatever is the object of it. It is the first of our abstract ideas; it cleaves to us the closest and the longest. It endears to the child its plaything, to the peasant his cottage, to the landholder his estate. It supplies the place of prospect and scenery. Instead of coveting the beauty of distant situations, it teaches every man to find it in his own. It gives boldness and grandeur to plains and fens, tinge and colouring to clays and fallows.

All these considerations come in aid of our second proposition. The reader will now bear in mind what our two propositions were. They were, firstly, that in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the

* Balguy on the Divine Benevolence.

contrivance is beneficial: secondly, that the Deity has added pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for any other purpose; or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the operation of pain.

Whilst these propositions can be maintained, we are authorized to ascribe to the Deity the character of benevolence: and what is benevolence at all, must in him be infinite benevolence, by reason of the infinite, that is to say, the incalculably great, number of objects upon which it is exercised.

Of the ORIGIN OF EVIL, no universal solution has been discovered; I mean, no solution which reaches to all cases of complaint. The most comprehensive is that which arises from the consideration of general rules. We may, I think, without much difficulty, be brought to admit the four following points: first, that important advantages may accrue to the universe from the order of nature proceeding according to general laws: secondly, that general laws, however well set and constituted, often thwart and cross one another thirdly, that from these thwartings and crossings, frequent particular inconveniencies will arise: and, fourthly, that it agrees with our observation to suppose, that some degree of these inconveniencies takes place in the works of nature. These points may be allowed; and it may also

be asserted, that the general laws with which we are acquainted, are directed to beneficial ends. On the other hand, with many of these laws we are not acquainted at all, or we are totally unable to trace them in their branches, and in their operation; the effect of which ignorance is, that they cannot be of importance to us as measures by which to regulate our conduct. The conservation of them may be of importance in other respects, or to other beings, but we are uninformed of their value or use; uninformed, consequently, when, and how far, they may or may not be suspended, or their effects turned aside, by a presiding and benevolent will, without incurring greater evils than those which would be avoided. The consideration, therefore, of general laws, although it may concern the question of the origin of evil very nearly, (which I think it does,) rests in views disproportionate to our faculties, and in a knowledge which we do not possess. It serves rather to account for the obscurity of the subject, than to supply us with distinct answers to our difficulties. However, whilst we assent to the above-stated propositions as principles, whatever uncertainty we may find in the application, we lay a ground for believing, that cases of apparent evil, for which we can suggest no particular reason, are governed by reasons, which are more general, which lie deeper in the order of second causes, and which on that account are removed to a greater distance from us.