ence being always assumed, philosophers have formed various
theories for explaining it, but they have always drawn very different
inferences from it.

The ancient Epicureans argued against the existence of the Deity,
because they held that the existence of Evil either proved him to be
limited in power or of a malignant nature; either of which imperfections
is inconsistent with the first notions of a divine being.

In this kind of reasoning they have been followed both by the atheists
and sceptics of later times.

Bayle regarded the subject of evil as one of the great arsenals from
whence his weapons were to be chiefly drawn. None of the articles in his
famous Dictionary are more labored than those in which he treats of
this subject. _Monichian_, and still more _Paulician_, almost assume the
appearance of formal treatises upon the question; and both _Marchionite_
and _Zoroaster_ treat of the same subject. All these articles are of
considerable value; they contain the greater part of the learning upon
the question; and they are distinguished by the acuteness of reasoning
which was the other characteristic of their celebrated author.

Those ancient philosophers who did not agree with Epicurus in arguing
from the existence of evil against the existence of a providence that
superintended and influenced the destinies of the world, were put to no
little difficulty in accounting for the fact which they did not deny,
and yet maintaining the power of a divine ruler. The doctrine of a
double principle, or of two divine beings of opposite natures, one
beneficent, the other mischievous, was the solution which one class of
reasoners deemed satisfactory, and to which they held themselves driven
by the phenomena of the universe.

Others unable to deny, the existence of things which men denominate
evil, both physical and moral, explain them in a different way. They
maintained that physical evil only obtains the name from our imperfect
and vicious or feeble dispositions; that to a wise man there is no such
thing; that we may rise superior to all such groveling notions as make
us dread or repine at any events which can befall the body; that pain,
sickness, loss of fortune or of reputation, exile, death itself, are
only accounted ills by a weak and pampered mind; that if we find the
world tiresome, or woeful, or displeasing, we may at any moment quit
it; and that therefore we have no right whatever to call any suffering
connected with