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Bayle has reprefented them, without being ftruck with the deepest horror. According to him, the Devil is making continual depredations upon the dominions of the Almighty, and notwithstanding all the pains and care of the univerfal Parent, to deliver his rational workmanship from the power of their grand adverfary, he is fcarce able to fave one out of a million. Deplorable, beyon i expreffion deplorable! must be the lot of man, were this his real fituation. But ftronger is he who is for us, than he who is against us; and the reins of government, delightful thought! are in the hands of one, whose power is abfolute, and whofe providence is univerfal, and kind, and gracious, as his nature.

I would obferve further, that if we analyfe the frame and ftructure of the human mind, with the moft minute accuracy and exactness, we shall be forced to acknowlege that man is admirably formed for making attainments in virtue, and rifing to very confiderable heights of real excellence. But it will be faid, I know, that all arguments drawn from the constitution of human nature, as far as the prefent question is concerned, are deceitful and unfatisfactory; and that it is experience, and matter of fact alone, that can determine the debate. Be it fo let the queftion be determined by an appeal to experience, and matter of fact; every one's experience, if I am not greatly miftaken, will be fufficient to furnish him with examples that do honour to human nature; with amiable characters, honourably fupported through the various relations of human life. Nay, let any one fix, for example, upon the perfon whom he thinks most hardened in vice, and it will be seldom found, I prefume, if he judges with any degree of candor and impartiality, that he can pronounce upon him, that his bad actions are more numerous than his good ones. Now if this be the cafe with the most abandoned among men, and let every man's confcience determine whether it is or not, what must be faid of the bulk of mankind? A very different character, furely, must be bestowed upon them, from that which Bayle has given them. Indeed, if their vices were in fuch proportion to their virtues, as he fays they are, it is impoffible that focieties could ever have been held together. But I muft not enlarge: and your Readers, I hope, will excuse this attempt in vindication of the honour of our common nature, and of the allwife and gracious Author of it.

Bayle's fecond head of enquiry is, whether phyfical good furpaffes phyfical evil in the world? Some perfons' fays he, perfuade themfelves, that the fweets of life are fuperior

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to its bitters. Those who are of this opinion, build chiefly on the comparifon between ficknefs and health. Very few perfons, of what age foever we fuppofe them, but can reckon infinitely more days of health than of indifpofition; and there are many people who, during twenty years, have not had a fortnight's fickness, all the times of their indifpofition being put together. This comparison, however, is fallacious; for health, confidered in itself, is rather a fimple exemption from pain, than a fenfation of pleafure: whereas fickness is fomething much stronger than the privation of pleasure; it is a pofitive ftate, which plunges the foul into a fenfation of fuffering, and oppreffes it with grief. Let us borrow a comparifon from the schoolmen; thefe fay, that porous bodies contain little matter under a large extent; and that dense bodies contain a great deal of matter in a little extent. We must infer, according to this principle, that there is more matter in three feet of water, than in two thousand five hundred feet of air. Such is the emblem of fickness and health. Sickness refembles denfe bodies, and health porous bodies. Health is diffused over a great number of years, and yet it contains but little good; fickness is fpread only over a few days, and yet includes a great deal of evil. Had we fcales to weigh a fickness of a fortnight's continuance, against a series of health for fifteen years, the fame would be found, as when we weigh a bag of feathers against a pig of lead.

It may be objected, that health is valuable, not only because it exempts us from a very great evil, but also because of the liberty it gives us to tafte a thousand fprightly and very fenfible pleafures. I grant all this, but we must likewife confider, that as there are two kinds of evil to which we are obnoxious, it fecures us only from the one, and leaves us quite expofed to the other. We are expofed to pain and forrow, two scourges of fo dreadful a nature, that we cannot determine which is the worst. The most vigorous health cannot fecure us from grief. Now grief is a paflion which pours in upon us through a thousand channels, and is of the nature of dense bodies; it includes a great deal of matter in a narrow compafs: the evil is there heaped up, crowded and pressed down in it. One hour's uneafinefs contains more evil than there is good in the space of fix or feven pleafant days. I was lately told of a man, who had killed himself, after three or four weeks uneafinefs. He had laid his fword every night under his pillow, in hopes of having the courage to dispatch himself, when the darknefs fhould increafe his forrow; but his heart failed him for feveral nights together: at laft, however, being

unable to bear up any longer under his grief, he cut the veins of his arm. I affert, that all the pleasures which this man had enjoyed for thirty years, would not equal the evils which tormented him during the last month of his life, were they weighed in fcales that were true. I would have my Reader confider my comparison between porous and denfe bodies, and call to mind, that the good things of this life are lefs good than the evils are evil. Evils are commonly more unmixed than good things; the lively fenfation of a pleasure is not lafting, it is foon palled, and is followed by diftafte. That which appeared to us as a great bleffing, when we did not enjoy it, makes a faint impreffion upon us when we are poffeffed of it. Thus we acquire, with a thousand pains and uneafineffes, a thing which, when once poffeffed, gives us but an inconfiderable joy; commonly the fear of lofing what we poffefs, surpasses all the fweets of enjoyment.—

'We must confefs with Seneca, when we confider the multiplicity of good things which nature beftows upon us, and the inexhaustible industry with which mankind diverfify their pleafures, and discover the fources of them; that God, not fatisfied with providing for our wants, has provided for us wherewith to live delicioufly. All that Seneca fays on this head is very true; but does not Pliny observe, on the other hand, that nature makes us purchafe her prefents at the expence of fo many fufferings, that it is doubtful whether the deferves more properly to be called a mother, or a step-dame. To reconcile thefe differences, we must confult what divinity teaches us, with respect to the economy of God, as the father, and as the judge of mankind. These two relations require, that man fhould feel both good and evil; but the question is, whether the evil furpaffes the good? and I believe, that nothing can be done in this matter, but to form opinions and conjectures about it. Many fay, that most people who are a little advanced in years, are like La Mothe Le Vayer, who would not willingly begin life again, or pass a fecond time through the fame good, and the fame evil he had met with. If this be fo, we must fuppofe, that every one finds that, upon the whole, the pleasures he has enjoyed, do not equal the uneafinelles and forrows he has met with. I do not affert, that no man iş contented with his condition; for this is not a proof, that every perfon confiders himfelf as lefs happy than unhappy. Four inconveniences intermixed with twenty conveniences, would be apt to make a man with for another condition; I mean, fuch a state as had no inconveniency; or where he fiould find but one or two with forty conveniences. On the other hand,

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no one must object, as Lactantius does, that mankind are fo delicate, that they complain of the least evil, as though it fwallowed up all the good things they had enjoyed: for it is nothing to the purpose to confider here, what the abfolute quantity of good and evil fent to man may be in itfelf; we must confider only the relative quality; or, to exprefs myself more clearly, we must confider only the fenfation of the foul. A very great good in itself, which fhould excite but a very moderate pleafure, ought to be confidered only as a moderate, or indifferent pleasure; but a little evil in itself, which should excite an infupportable uneafinefs, grief, or pain, ought to be confidered as a very great evil. The government of a province is, in itself, a greater good than a ribband; and nevertheless, if a man fhould feel more joy in receiving a ribband from his mistress, than in obtaining the government of a province from his King, I fay, that a ribband, with respect to him, would be a greater good than a government. By a parity of reafoning, it would be a greater evil for him to be deprived of this ribband, than to be removed from his government. For which reafon, no man can judge properly of the happiness or infelicity of his neighbour. We only know the external caufes of good and evil, which caufes are not always proportionable to their effects; thofe which feem to us small, often produce a ftrong fenfation; and those which appear to us great, often produce only a faint fenfation.

It is certain, that those who would feek for perfons who had felt more pleasure than pain, would find fuch rather among peasants, or mean artificers, than among Kings and Princes. Read the following words of a great man: "You imagine, "then, that diffatisfactions, and the moft killing uneafineffes, << are not concealed beneath purple; or that a kingdom is an "univerfal remedy to all evils; a balm that foftens them, "and a charm that enchants them. Whereas, by the course "of Divine Providence, which can counterpoife the most ex"alted conditions, their grandeur, which we admire at a dif "tance, as fomething above man, affects those less who are "born in it, or confounds itfelf in its plenty on the con"trary, great perfons are more strongly fenfible of afflictions, "and are the more affected with them, as they are the less "prepared to withstand them." Boffuet's Funeral Oration on Maria Therefa of Auftria.

These are the two fources of the unhappiness of the Great; the habitual felicity of their condition makes them very infen-. fible to bleffings, and extremely affected with evils. If they receive one piece of bad news, and three of good, they will

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be very flightly affected with the happiness of the latter, but ftrongly with the infelicity of the former. Can it then be pof fible for them to be free from uneafinefs? Are any of their profperous events unmixed with misfortunes? If we read the feveral actions performed by Guftavus, in Germany, we shall find fuch a fuperiority of fortune, as has very few examples; and yet we fee fo great an intermixture of difadvantageous incidents, that it will appear very plain he met with many uneafineffes. We cannot have a better proof than in Auguftus, that we are not to look upon thrones, in order to find happy perfons; for if any monarch was ever favoured by For tune, it was Auguftus; and nevertheless, the catalogue of his griefs is fo long, that every person must conclude from thence, that he at least met with as many evils as bleffings.—

'But it is time to put an end to these common places, which I fhall accordingly do, with the four following fhort remarks. 1. That if we confider mankind in general, it seems as if they had more uneafineffes and pain, than pleafure. 2. That there are fome individuals, whofe lives, we may fuppofe, are che quered with a much greater proportion of good than evil. 3. That there are others, who, we may suppose, meet with much more evil than good. 4. That my fecond propofition is, efpecially, probable, with regard to fuch as die before old age; and that my fourth appears chiefly certain, with regard to those who live to a decrepid age. When Racan affirmed, that the gods made glory only for themselves, and pleafures for us, he doubtless had a view only to the youthful feason of life. It is then that pleasures predominate; that good weighs heaviest in the fcale. The Nemefis of the Heathens is extremely courteous, and gives credit; fhe is willing to have the accounts fettled without any deduction; but then the repays herself with our old age.'

What Bayle has advanced under this his fecond head of enquiry, it is obvious, upon the smallest reflection, is extremely exceptionable, as well as what he has faid under his firft, and confirms the obfervation before made, that an ingenious man may take what fide of almoft any queftion he pleafes, and fay plaufible things upon it. But leaft I fhould extend this letter to too great a length, I muft haften to a conclufion.

The fourth volume of this Analysis then contains, firft, the fequel of the fyftems and opinions of the antient philofophers, viz. thofe of Chryfippus, Carneades, Cratippus, Plotinus, Hierocles, &c. After this there follows an account of the different religious fyftems, of the founders of fects, the Sadducees, Adamites, Cainites, Arians, Manicheans, and Mahomedans,

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