own performance, and, with respect to mortals like himself, may
demand, like Augustus, to be dismissed at his departure with applause.

No. 89. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1759.

[Greek: Anechou kai apechou.] EPICT.

How evil came into the world; for what reason it is that life is
overspread with such boundless varieties of misery; why the only
thinking being of this globe is doomed to think merely to be wretched,
and to pass his time from youth to age in fearing or in suffering
calamities, is a question which philosophers have long asked, and which
philosophy could never answer.

Religion informs us that misery and sin were produced together. The
depravation of human will was followed by a disorder of the harmony of
nature; and by that providence which often places antidotes in the
neighbourhood of poisons, vice was checked by misery, lest it should
swell to universal and unlimited dominion.

A state of innocence and happiness is so remote from all that we have
ever seen, that though we can easily conceive it possible, and may,
therefore, hope to attain it, yet our speculations upon it must be
general and confused. We can discover that where there is universal
innocence, there will probably be universal happiness; for, why should
afflictions be permitted to infest beings who are not in danger of
corruption from blessings, and where there is no use of terrour nor
cause of punishment? But in a world like ours, where our senses assault
us, and our hearts betray us, we should pass on from crime to crime,
heedless and remorseless, if misery did not stand in our way, and our
own pains admonish us of our folly.

Almost all the moral good, which is left among us, is the apparent
effect of physical evil.

Goodness is divided by divines into soberness, righteousness and
godliness. Let it be examined how each of these duties would be
practised, if there were no physical evil to enforce it.

Sobriety, or temperance, is nothing but the forbearance of pleasure; and
if pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it? We see every
hour those in whom the desire of present indulgence overpowers all sense
of past and all foresight of future misery. In a remission of the gout,
the drunkard returns to his wine, and the glutton to his feast; and if
neither disease nor poverty were felt or dreaded, every one would sink
down in idle sensuality, without any care of others, or of himself. To
eat and drink, and lie down to