st by the great Being of all?

The Manichean doctrine, then, is exposed to every objection to which
a theory can be obnoxious. It is gratuitous; it is inapplicable to the
facts; it supposes more causes than are necessary; it fails to explain
the phenomena, leaving the difficulties exactly where it found them.
Nevertheless, such is the theory, how easily soever refuted when openly
avowed and explicitly stated, which in various disguises appears to
pervade the explanations, given of the facts by most of the other
systems; nay, to form, secretly and unacknowledged, their principal
ground-work. For it really makes very little difference in the matter
whether we are to account for evil by holding that the Deity has created
as much happiness as was consistent with "the nature of things," and
has taken every means of avoiding all evil except "where it necessarily
existed" or at once give those limiting influences a separate and
independent existence, and call them by a name of their own, which is
the Manichean hypothesis.

The most remarkable argument on this subject, and the most distinguished
both for its clear and well ordered statement, and for the systematic
shape which it assumes, is that of Archbishop King. It is the great
text-book of those who study this subject; and like the famous legal
work of Littleton, it has found an expounder yet abler and more learned
than the author himself. Bishop Law's commentary is full of information,
of reasoning and of explication; nor can we easily find anything
valuable upon the subject which is not contained in the volumes of
that work. It will, however, only require a slight examination of the
doctrines maintained by these learned and pious men, to satisfy us that
they all along either assume the thing to be proved, or proceed
upon suppositions quite inconsistent with the infinite power of the
Deity--the only position which raises a question, and which makes the
difficulty that requires to be solved.

According to all the systems as well as this one, evil is of two
kinds--physical and moral. To the former class belong all the sufferings
to which sentient beings are exposed from the qualities and affections
of matter independent of their own acts; the latter class consists of
the sufferings of whatever kind which arise from their own conduct. This
division of the subject, however, is liable to one serious objection;
it comprehends under the second head a class of evils which ought