wledge, and consequently no such thing as self-development and
progress. To select only one instance out of many: the atheist objects,
that it is not worthy of infinite wisdom and goodness to provide us with
so complicated an instrument as the eye, as a means of obtaining light and
knowledge. Why could not this end be attained by a more simple and direct
method? Why leave us, for so great a portion of earthly existence, in
comparative ignorance, to grope out our way into regions of light?

In the eye of reason, there is no end to this kind of objecting; and it
only stops where the shallow conceit, or wayward fancy, of the objector is
pleased to terminate. It is very easy to ask, Why a Being of infinite
goodness did not confer light and knowledge upon us directly and at once,
without leaving us to acquire them by the tedious use of the complicated
means provided by his natural providence. But the inquiry does not stop
here. He might just as well ask, Why such a Being was pleased to confer so
small an amount of light upon us, and leave us to acquire more for
ourselves? Why not confer it upon us without measure and without exertion
on our part? The same interrogation, it is evident, may be applied to
every other blessing, as well as to knowledge; and hence the objection of
the atheist, when carried out, terminates in the great difficulty, why God
did not make all creatures alike, and each equal to himself. On the
principle of this objection, the insect should complain that it is not a
man; the man that he is not an angel; and the angel that he is not a god.
Hence, such a principle would exclude from the system of the world
everything like a diversity and subordination of parts; and would reduce
the whole universe, as a system, to as inconceivable a nonentity as would
be a watch, all of whose parts should be made of exactly the same
materials, and possessing precisely the same force and properties.

In every system, whether of nature or of art, there must be a variety and
subordination of parts. Hence, to object that each part is not perfect in
itself, without considering its relations and adaptation to the whole, is
little short of madness. And what heightens the absurdity in the present
case is, that the parts which fall under observation may, for aught we
know, possess the greatest perfection which is consistent with the highest
good and beauty of the whole.

If God has endowed man with the attributes of reason and speec