not possibly tell whether worse might not ensue; this, too, is
assuming a limited power in the Deity, contrary to the hypothesis.
It may most justly be said, that if there be any one supposition
necessarily excluded from the whole argument, it is the fundamental
supposition of the "previous remark," namely, "all other things
continuing the same."

But see how this assumption pervades and paralyzes the whole argument,
rendering it utterly inconclusive. The author is to answer an objection
derived from the constitution of our appetites for food, and his reply
is, that "we cannot tell how far it was _possible_ for the stomachs and
palates of animals to be differently formed, unless by some remedy worse
than the disease." Again, upon the question of pain: "How do we know
that it was _possible_ for the uneasy sensation to be confined to
particular cases?" So we meet the same fallacy under another form,
as evil being the result of "general principles." But no one has ever
pushed this so far as Dr. Balguy, for he says, "that in a government so
conducted, many events are likely to happen contrary to the intention
of its author." He now calls in the aid of chance, or accident.--"It is
probable," he says, "that God should be good, for evil is more likely
to be _accidental_ than appears from experience in the conduct of men."
Indeed, his fundamental position of the Deity's benevolence is rested
upon this foundation, that "pleasures only were intended, and that
the pains are accidental consequences, although the means of producing
pleasures." The same recourse to accident is repeatedly had. Thus, "the
events to which we are exposed in this imperfect state appear to be the
_accidental_, not natural, effects of our frame and condition." Now can
any one thing be more manifest than that the very first notion of a wise
and powerful Being excludes all such assumptions as things happening
contrary to His intention; and that when we use the word chance or
accident, which only means our human ignorance of causes, we at once
give up the whole question, as if we said, "It is a subject about
which we know nothing." So again as to power. "A good design is more
_difficult_ to be executed, and therefore more likely to be executed
_imperfectly_, than an evil one, that is, with a mixture of effects
foreign to the design and opposite to it." This at once assumes the
Deity to be powerless. But a general statement is afterwards made more
distinctly to