of which it may be doubted
whether literature, heathen or Christian, furnishes a parallel, it
professes to trace this supposed evil to its source, 'the laws of
nature, which are those of God;' thereby implying, and indeed asserting,
that the law by which the Deity multiplies his offspring, and that by
which he makes provision for their sustentation, are different, and,
indeed, irreconcilable."

"This theory," he adds, "in the plain apprehension of the many, lowers
the character of the Deity in that attribute, which, as Rousseau has
well observed, is the most essential to him, his goodness; or otherwise,
impugns his wisdom."

Now nothing is more certain than that there is physical and moral
evil in the world. Whoever, therefore, believes, as we do most
firmly believe, in the goodness of God, must believe that there is
no incompatibility between the goodness of God and the existence
of physical and moral evil. If, then, the goodness of God be not
incompatible with the existence of physical and moral evil, on what
grounds does Mr Sadler maintain that the goodness of God is incompatible
with the law of population laid down by Mr Malthus?

Is there any difference between the particular form of evil which would
be produced by over-population, and other forms of evil which we know
to exist in the world? It is, says Mr Sadler, not a light or transient
evil, but a great and permanent evil. What then? The question of the
origin of evil is a question of ay or no,--not a question of more
or less. If any explanation can be found by which the slightest
inconvenience ever sustained by any sentient being can be reconciled
with the divine attribute of benevolence, that explanation will equally
apply to the most dreadful and extensive calamities that can ever
afflict the human race. The difficulty arises from an apparent
contradiction in terms; and that difficulty is as complete in the case
of a headache which lasts for an hour as in the case of a pestilence
which unpeoples an empire,--in the case of the gust which makes us
shiver for a moment as in the case of the hurricane in which an Armada
is cast away.

It is, according to Mr Sadler, an instance of presumption unparalleled
in literature, heathen or Christian, to trace an evil to "the laws of
nature, which are those of God," as its source. Is not hydrophobia
an evil? And is it not a law of nature that hydrophobia should be
communicated by the bite of a mad dog? Is not malaria an