d useful purpose with those in which we have been
able to perceive the whole, or nearly the whole scheme. Great as have
been our achievements in physical astronomy, we are as yet wholly unable
to understand why a power pervades the system acting inversely as the
squares of the distance from the point to which it attracts, rather
than a power acting according to any other law; and why it has been the
pleasure of the almighty Architect of that universe, that the orbits
of the planets should be nearly circular instead of approaching to, or
being exactly the same with many other trajectories of a nearly similar
form, though of other properties; nay, instead of being curves of a
wholly different class and shape. Yet we never doubt that there was a
reason for this choice; nay, we fancy it possible that even on earth
we may hereafter understand it more clearly than we now do: and never
question that in another state of being we may be permitted to enjoy the
contemplation of it. Why should we doubt that, at least in that higher
state, we may also be enabled to perceive such an arrangement as shall
make evil wholly disappear from our present system, by showing that it
was necessary and inevitable, even in the works of the Deity; or, which
is the same thing, that its existence conduces to such a degree
of perfection and happiness upon, the whole, as could not, even by
Omnipotence, be attained without it; or, which is the same thing,
that the whole creation as it exists, taking both worlds together, is
perfect, and incapable of being in any particular changed without being
made worse and less perfect? Taking both worlds together--For certainly
were our views limited to the present sublunary state, we may well
affirm that no solution whatever could even be imagined of the
difficulty--if we are never again to live; if those we here loved are
forever lost to us; if our faculties can receive no further expansion;
if our mental powers are only trained and improved to be extinguished
at their acme--then indeed are we reduced to the melancholy and gloomy
dilemma of the Epicureans; and evil is confessed to checker, nay, almost
to cloud over our whole lot, without the possibility of comprehending
why, or of reconciling its existence with the supposition of a
providence at once powerful and good. But this inference is also an
additional argument for a future state, when we couple it with these
other conclusions respecting the economy of the w