ded because of the imperfection of
matter and the nature of motion. That state of things were therefore
preferable which was attained with the fewest and the least
inconveniences." Then follows a kind of menace, "And who but a very
rash, indiscreet person will affirm that God has not made choice of
this?"--when every one must perceive that the bare propounding of the
question concerning evil calls upon us to exercise this temerity and
commit this indiscretion.--Chap. iv. s. I, div. 7. He then goes into
more detail as to particular cases of natural evil; but all are handled
in the same way. Thus death is explained by saying that the bodies of
animals are a kind of vessels which contain fluids in motion, and being
broken, the fluids are spilt and the motions cease; "because by the
native imperfection of matter it is capable of dissolution, and the
spilling and stagnation must necessarily follow, and with it animal life
must cease."--Chap. iv. s. 3. Disease is dealt with in like manner. "It
could not be avoided unless animals had been made of a quite different
frame and constitution."--Chap. iv. s. 7. The whole reasoning is summed
up in the concluding section of this part, where the author somewhat
triumphantly says, "The difficult question then, whence comes evil? is
not unanswerable. For it arises from the very nature and
constitution of created beings, and could not be avoided without a
contradiction."--Chap. iv. s. 9. To this the commentary of Bishop Law
adds (Note 4i), "that natural evil has been shown to be, in every case,
unavoidable, without introducing into the system a greater evil."

It is certain that many persons, led away by the authority of a great
name, have been accustomed to regard this work as a text-book, and have
appealed to Archbishop King and his learned commentator as having solved
the question. So many men have referred to the _Principia_ as showing
the motions of the heavenly bodies, who never read, or indeed could
read, a page of that immortal work. But no man ever did open it who
could read it and find himself disappointed in any one particular;
the whole demonstration is perfect; not a link is wanting; nothing is
assumed. How different the case here! We open the work of the prelate
and find it from the first to last a chain of gratuitous assumptions,
and, of the main point, nothing whatever is either proved or explained.
Evil arises, he says, from the nature of matter. Who doubts it? But is
not