But the existence of considerable misery is undeniable: and the question is, of course, confined to that. Its exaggeration, in the ordinary estimate both of the vulgar and of skeptical reasoners, is equally certain. Paley, Bishop Sumner, as well as Derham, King, Ray and others of the older writers, have made many judicious and generally correct observations upon its amount, and they, as well as some of the able and learned authors of the _Bridgwater Treatises_, have done much in establishing deductions necessary to be made, in order that we may arrive at the true amount. That many things, apparently unmixed evils, when examined more narrowly, prove to be partially beneficial, is the fair result of their well-meant labors; and this, although anything rather than a proof that there is no evil at all, yet is valuable as still further proving the analogy between this branch of the argument and that upon design; and in giving hopes that all may possibly be found hereafter to be good, as everything will assuredly be found to be contrived with an intelligent and useful purpose. It may be right to add a remark or two upon some evils, and those of the greatest magnitude in the common estimate of human happiness, with a view of further illustrating this part of the subject.
Mere imperfection must altogether be deducted from the account. It never can be contended that any evil nature can be ascribed to the first cause, merely for not having endowed sentient creatures with greater power or wisdom, for not having increased and multiplied the sources of enjoyment, or for not having made those pleasures which we have more exquisitely grateful. No one can be so foolish as to argue that the Deity is either limited in power, or deficient in goodness, because he has chosen to create some beings of a less perfect order than others. The mere negation in the creating of some, indeed of many, nay, of any conceivable number of desirable attributes, is therefore no proper evidence of evil design or of limited power in the Creator--it is no proof of the existence of evil properly so called. But does not this also erase death from the catalogue of ills? It might well please the Deity to create a mortal being which, consisting of soul and body, was only to live upon this earth for a limited number of years. If, when that time has expired, this being is removed to another and a superior state of existence, no evil whatever accrues to it from the change; and all views of the government of this world lead to the important and consolitary conclusion, that such is the design of the Creator; that he cannot have bestowed on us minds capable of such expansion and culture only to be extinguished when they have reached their highest pitch of improvement; or if this be considered as begging the question by assuming benevolent design, we cannot easily conceive that while the mind’s force is so little affected by the body’s decay, the destruction or dissolution of the latter should be the extinction of the former. But that death operates as an evil of the very highest kind in two ways is obvious; the dread of it often embitters life, and the death of friends brings to the mind by far its most painful infliction; certainly the greatest suffering it can undergo without any criminal consciousness of its own.