beauty which is shed on the heavens and the earth by the radiance of the sun in more favoured regions of the globe. Does cold invest with fur the animals exposed to its power, but unable to provide for their own defence ? and does heat again in warm countries convert wool into hair, render hair itself rigid and thin, prevent its growing on many animals, or cause it fall off ?-all this we perceive to be better, than if the case had been inverted, or no such changes produced. The same observation may be made on the effect of the solar heat in darkening and blackening the human skin. Does the cold of approaching winter contribute its part to strip the trees of their foliage ? There is also a meliority in this effect, as a fit preparation for the season of diminished light and of storms. Expose the trees of the orchard' or the forest to the fury of the tempest, with all the resistance which their leaves would present, they would be torn up by the roots. Subject them to the pressure of the snow, which these leaves would amass, their branches would be broken down, and their beauty destroyed not to revive. Then the humidity, the coolness, and the shade, which the heat and splendour of summer render so desirable, can well be spared in a season like winter, which is sufficiently moist, and which evidently requires that the quantity of heat and light should rather be increased than diminished.

Here, however, the sceptic may be disposed to remind us, that the constitution of nature must necessarily have been just what it is in all these respects, and others of a similar kind, whether it had been advantageous or not, and that therefore the meliority in point of advantage is merely accidental. Grant this first position for a moment, still the ulterior objects to which the meliority relates, and but in relation to which the idea indeed would not exist, were not necessarily such as they are. Suppose the effects of heat and cold necessary and unalterable, the constitution of man and of the inferior animals was entirely contingent. The human eye might have been formed so as to depend on no compensation for the diminution of light, the human skin so as to receive no impression from the solar rays, or if any, so as to be bleached rather than darkened. But we have not forgotten, that even as to what may be deemed the necessary and unavoidable effects of heat and cold in most of the instances mentioned, their adjustment to the general economy of our globe depends on the inclination of its asis, which is plainly contingent, or might have been otherwise, since a great diversity is found on this head in the planetary system. In some instances, also, the necessity of the effect is not absq

lutely certain. Who can say whether the effects of heat and cold on the clothing of animals, might not have been inverted ? Why might not the rays of the sun, which promote vegetation, have also tended (as heat does in some cases) to promote the growth of hair, that vegeto-animal substance with which they are clothed ? The fall of the leaf is not to be entirely ascribed, as a necessary effect, to the first rigours of winter, for trees have a natural predisposition to part with their foliage. And it is not a little remarkable, that those only retain their verdure which are pliant, formed for yielding to the blast, or whose leaves make little resistance, and by their glossy surface, or needle-like shape, throw of the snows that would otherwise oppress them.*

More fully, however, to destroy the force of the first position advanced by our sceptic, facts may be adduced sufficient to justify our ranking the meliority apparent in nature among the phenomena which correspond to the known results of wisdom and not of neccssity. How vastly preferable is the Copernican, the real system of the planets, to the Ptolmean, founded only on appearance ! There was no necessity, we have seen in a former part of this essay, that could determine the only luminous body to the centre, yet it is better it should be there than in any of the planetary orbits, better that a moon should be a satellite than a primary, and better that the number of satellites should increase rather than diminish with the di nce of the primaries from the sun. The motion of the earth, in its annual orbit, has been calculated to be fifty times swifter than its motion of diurnal rotation. Was there any original or absolute necessity for this in the nature of things ? It is plainly fit and proper, however, since had it been accelerated doubly, so as to have performed the annual revolution in six months, the seasons would have been deranged, and the cold of winter would have overtaken the harvest ere the fruits had been ripened. Had it been retarded in the same ratio, the consequence must have been equally fatal. There would have been but one harvest for two years in the temperate zones, which, with the same population, would have been totally inadequate to the consumpt of food. If only twelve diurnal rotations had taken place in the course of the year as now fixed, then every day or period of light would have been equal to half a month,

• The bolly, the yew, and a variety of firs.-Yet that the retaining of their foliage is not the necessary consequence of their structure, or of the resin which renders them tough and pliant, appears from the larch's annually shedding its needle-shaped leaves.

which would neither have been proportioned to the strength of the human being for the business of life, nor provided for the requisite repair of bodily and mental vigour, according to our present constitution.— Is it not better, too, every way more advantageous in fact, and therefore more desirable, that the ocean should be in a state of constant undulation, that even the atmosphere should have its flux and reflux, and that both should be frequently agitated by storms, than that the latter should have rested in moveless repose on the former, or a perpetual calm have reigned both at sea and on land ?* Turn to another subject, ponder the position of the limbs, features, and organs of sense in the human body. Not only is it preferable on the score of beauty and symmetry, to any other position, it is confessedly the fittest for answering the respective purposes of the several parts.+

To give only another instance of this universal meliority, and one which may lead us on to the contemplation of goodness,-the vital motions, as was formerly remarked, are not dependent on the will. How infinitely better is this than if, like other motions, they had been left to be maintained and regulated by it! Assuredly they would have been forgotten or neglected; and not only when life was surrendered in humble submission to our lot, but in every instance of death, we must have been our own executioners, or in some way accessory to our decease. The power of quitting our present existence at pleasure would have been often abused; pride or terror would have employed it for the purpose of anticipating all public executions, and defeating the administration of justice; we should never have dared to venture on the refreshment of sleep,—the thing

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* De LAMANON, the companion of Peyrouse, ascertained by the barometer, that there is a flux and reflux in the atmosphere which rises and falls about 100 feet, the highest rise in the sea never reaching twenty. Pey. ROUSE's Voyage, vol ii. 237.

+ Had the eyes, for example, been near the lower extremities, how much had that tender organ been exposed to danger, and how greatly bad the extent of the visible horizon been abridged. So on of the rest. See SOCRATES admirable discourse on this subject in the Memorabilia. To those who plead, in opposition to the idea of a directive hand, that all things must of necessity and by physical causes of unavoidable operation, have been just as they are, we may propose, in the Socratic manner, one question out of many which might be put, on the very head of beauty and symmetry,—wbence is it that though the bair of the head and the beard advances to a considerable length, and continues to grow spontaneously, that of the eyebrows and eyelashes, projecting in different directions, always continues short, soon acquires its full size, the only dimensions that would be convenient, and never vegetates more ? On the utility of Two Eyes, besides their contributing to beauty, see Hooker's Rational Recreations, article Dioptrics.

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ideed had been impossible; and if this control over the vital motions had not been restricted to rational beings, but connected with life generally and imparted to all animals, either no animal would have died but by force, and thus the different classes would have multiplied to a most inconvenient extent, or, which is most likely, the whole race of irrational beings would soon have perished through their own incapacity of attending to the task of existing.

To proceed with the proof of our position, facts corresponding to the known results of GOODNESS everywhere press themselves on observation and experience. By goodness, as distinguished from the To #pinoy and the ro xarov, which constitute the excellence of a work indicative of wisdom, is meant the principle of benevolence in the operator. This must always bear a relation to animated beings, since, without the faculty of sensation, no being can be the proper object of benevolence, or of its manifestation in deeds of beneficence. Now it must be obvious, that the very meliority of which we have been treating, respects not merely the happy application of means, conducive to the excellence of the work, and thus evidential of wisdom, but the positive advantage also of all the animated beings with which we are acquainted, coinciding in this view with the known demonstration of Goodness. The specimens adduced exhibit beneficial arrangement.

Whether upon the supposition of a different relative constitution of the world and the animated beings upon it, the system complexly taken might not have been better than it is, or afforded a larger measure of happiness, is an inquiry which can nowise affect either what has been stated or what remains to be advanced. If the atheist will grant an omnipotent Being, we will grant that no limits can be set to his

power

but by the necessary finitude of its subjects; we will grant farther, that our world may not exhibit the utmost of what Omnipotence could do in communicating happiness, or rendering animated beings susceptible of it. But we would at the same time remind the atheist, that such a Being cannot be under the necessity of rendering all his creatures susceptible of the highest degrees, or even of the highest species of happiness, since this would preclude him both from diversifying the orders of animated beings, and also from variously modifying the forms of happiness by making some beings subservient to others,—all must be cast into the same mould, and all immediately dependant on himself to the exclusion of every subordinate channel of enjoyment. If this would involve a contradiction, and if it

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be none to suppose that a Deíty may diversify the orders of animated beings, (surrendering some, for example, to instinct, endowing others with intellect in various degrees, forming some with fewer and others with more organs of sense, or powers of activity,) neither will it be any contradiction to suppose, that he may have made a diversity of systems, and among these such a one as our planetary system, or such a world as this among the diversity of worlds which belong to that system, though it may not be the highest effort of omnipotent Goodness. The meliority in this case must be restricted to the relative constitution of the world and its animated beings, and the sole question is, whether they being such as they are, the present arrangement of all things be not better adapted to their exigencies and capacities, than if it had been different ? This we have already evinced, and in so far the proof of meliority bears upon Goodness as truly as wisdom.

One other caveat we add on the subject. The meliority of our system must respect its original constitution ; for it may be possible that the state of the

animated beings in our world might have been better than it is, but the disadvantages which belong to it, and which diminish the proportion of possible happiness, may have been superinduced by the conduct of free agents. Such agents there are, and such, supposing a Deity, must be responsible ; in virtue of this responsibility, again, if they shall err and become immoral, their happiness ought to be marred; and then, in order to its being marred in such a degree as might comport with a state of forbearance, a certain derangement of the original constitution, affecting even the beings which are not responsible, was absolutely necessary. The consideration of this point, however, belongs to the solution of difficulties, where it may be shewn that the present and ultimate advantages of this derangement more than counterbalance its disagreeable effects. In the mean time, as it was not to be supposed that a Deity would leave himself “ without a witness” of his goodness, let us advert to those proofs that remain, and not only render it probable that some derangement of the original state of things has taken place, but even correspond to the results of mercy or compassion, by their evident relation to present disadvantages.

Is it to be expected of goodness, that, according to its power, it will multiply its subjects? Then, there is no void, -no part of the world left destitute of beings suited to its nature,-nothing suffered to run to waste, without ministering in one form or another to sensitive and rational enjoyment. We behold