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beings must be subject to to this controul and those causes : limited attributes , therefore , necessarily imply subjection , dependence , comparative weakness , subjection to various contending and opposite natural powers , over which the being- has no controulthe elements for instance , and hence
we are introduced to vulnerability , liability to injury , infirmity , pain , misery , and all that is commonly called natural evil . ^ Beside which , as we find that man is thus necessarily the subject of opposite causes , these
opposite causes will necessarily produce opposite motives in his mind ; and two opposite motives will not both produce the same effect ; the one will be pleasurable , and the other painful . And here we must admire the wisdom
and goodness which constituted man a sentient being ' , since his happiness must thus necessarily and entirely depend on change and fluctuation ; and since no created being , and especially one with his sensitive powers , could derive any happiness whatever
in that torpid state which would be the necessary result of not being the subject of these causes , and of the sensations of pain and pleasure , hope and fear , which serve to keep in action his powers and expand his faculties , in the ardent pursuit of pleasure and
avoidance of pain , and thus constitute his best happiness . Without motion in the universe , there could he no life or animation ; and thus with man , his happiness is built upon that opposition , fluctuation , counteraction
and motion of contending causes and effects , as necessarily yield that alternate change of pain and pleasure , hope and fear , which prompt him to perpetual pursuit and amusement , and therefore to happiness : nor does the
importance or insignificancy of the object of p * tfs \ iit matter at all ; it is enough that it occasions pursuit , and the happiness occasioned by pursuit , is the same whether the object of it be a butterfl y or a comet .
rhough I have for the sake of perspicuity , spoken of moral and natural evil , according to their common acceptation as distinct principles , I am fully persuaded that they are only arbitrary terms , which have the same meaning ; « mce philosophically speaking , evil can be only that which is productive o * pain , and good only that which is
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productive of pleasure : and were we to investigate the subject deepl y * we should discover natural evil constantly arising from moral evil , and vice vers& ; since the miscalculation of happiness which has before been proved to
constitute moral evil , is only to be deplored on account of its consequent production of natural evil , i . e . the pain and misery attendant upon intemperance % &c \ : and hence all moral e-ood and ill &c \ ; and hence all moral good and ill
will be found to be nothing more than the production of natural good and ill : and thus all good and ill , both moral and natural , must be referred
to , and determined by , the pain or pleasure of which they are productive , for it is the consequences of all actions which alone can constitute them good or evil . And this is evidently the best and surest standard of vice and virtue
for since pain cannot be made pleasure , so for the very same reason , vice cannot be made virtue . In any other sense , moral and natural good and ill , vice and virtue , are but mere words , and have no precise meaning .
Imperfection , then , or rather necessary evil , for I believe with Pope , that " man ' s as perfect as he ought" or was designed to be , is the necessary inheritance of all created intelligences , and I flatter myself that the
proposition has been fully supported , that it is impossible even for infinite Power itself to make a being free from eviL Nor is this any detraction whatever from infinite Power , since it cannot be necessary to the existence of infiaite Power , that it should be capable of
working impossibilities ; neither can it be essential to Deity , that he should be capable of making an equal . The vulgar maxim , that ' * nothing is impossible with God , " here finds , like most other rules , an exception , and
that without being at all derogatory to the infinite nature of either of thi divine attributes . Supposing this hypothesis to be wel founded , several highly important inferences arise from it , with , the same certainty of demonstration , which I am led to suppose attends the hypothesis itself ; " and amongst others ,
1 . It affords a most complete answer to the questions which have hitherto perplexed alike every system of theology , in every age of the world , i . e . Why does an infinitely wjse , omnipotent and benevolent God , allow
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Introduction of Evil * 379
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1823, page 379, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1786/page/11/
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