But not to insist upon these topics, continued P/HILO\,
though most obvious, certain, and important; I must use the
freedom to admonish you, C/LEANTHES\, that you have put the
controversy upon a most dangerous issue, and are unawares
introducing a total scepticism into the most essential articles
of natural and revealed theology. What! no method of fixing a
just foundation for religion, unless we allow the happiness of
human life, and maintain a continued existence even in this
world, with all our present pains, infirmities, vexations, and
follies, to be eligible and desirable! But this is contrary to
every one's feeling and experience: It is contrary to an
authority so established as nothing can subvert. No decisive
proofs can ever be produced against this authority; nor is it
possible for you to compute, estimate, and compare, all the pains
and all the pleasures in the lives of all men and of all animals:
And thus, by your resting the whole system of religion on a
point, which, from its very nature, must for ever be uncertain,
you tacitly confess, that that system is equally uncertain.
But allowing you what never will be believed, at least what
you never possibly can prove, that animal, or at least human
happiness, in this life, exceeds its misery, you have yet done
nothing: For this is not, by any means, what we expect from
infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness. Why is
there any misery at all in the world? Not by chance surely.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134