If you can make out the present
point, and prove mankind to be unhappy or corrupted, there is an
end at once of all religion. For to what purpose establish the
natural attributes of the Deity, while the moral are still
doubtful and uncertain?
You take umbrage very easily, replied D/EMEA\, at opinions
the most innocent, and the most generally received, even amongst
the religious and devout themselves: and nothing can be more
surprising than to find a topic like this, concerning the
wickedness and misery of man, charged with no less than Atheism
and profaneness. Have not all pious divines and preachers, who
have indulged their rhetoric on so fertile a subject; have they
not easily, I say, given a solution of any difficulties which may
attend it? This world is but a point in comparison of the
universe; this life but a moment in comparison of eternity. The
present evil phenomena, therefore, are rectified in other
regions, and in some future period of existence. And the eyes of
men, being then opened to larger views of things, see the whole
connection of general laws; and trace with adoration, the
benevolence and rectitude of the Deity, through all the mazes and
intricacies of his providence.
No! replied C/LEANTHES\, No! These arbitrary suppositions
can never be admitted, contrary to matter of fact, visible and
uncontroverted. Whence can any cause be known but from its known
effects? Whence can any hypothesis be proved but from the
apparent phenomena? To establish one hypothesis upon another, is
building entirely in the air; and the utmost we ever attain, by
these conjectures and fictions, is to ascertain the bare
possibility of our opinion; but never can we, upon such terms,
establish its reality.
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