evil? And is it
not a law of nature that in particular situations the human frame should
be liable to malaria? We know that there is evil in the world. If it is
not to be traced to the laws of nature, how did it come into the world?
Is it supernatural? And, if we suppose it to be supernatural, is not the
difficulty of reconciling it with the divine attributes as great as if
we suppose it to be natural? Or, rather, what do the words natural and
supernatural mean when applied to the operations of the Supreme Mind?

Mr Sadler has attempted, in another part of his work, to meet these
obvious arguments, by a distinction without a difference.

"The scourges of human existence, as necessary regulators of the numbers
of mankind, it is also agreed by some, are not inconsistent with the
wisdom or benevolence of the Governor of the universe; though such think
that it is a mere after-concern to 'reconcile the undeniable state of
the fact to the attributes we assign to the Deity.' 'The purpose of the
earthquake,' say they, 'the hurricane, the drought, or the famine, by
which thousands, and sometimes almost millions, of the human race, are
at once overwhelmed, or left the victims of lingering want, is certainly
inscrutable.' How singular is it that a sophism like this, so false, as
a mere illustration, should pass for an argument, as it has long done!
The principle of population is declared to be naturally productive of
evils to mankind, and as having that constant and manifest tendency to
increase their numbers beyond the means of their subsistence, which has
produced the unhappy and disgusting consequences so often enumerated.
This is, then, its universal tendency or rule. But is there in Nature
the same constant tendency to these earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts,
and famines by which so many myriads, if not millions, are overwhelmed
or reduced at once to ruin? No; these awful events are strange
exceptions to the ordinary course of things; their visitations are
partial, and they occur at distant intervals of time. While Religion has
assigned to them a very solemn office, Philosophy readily refers them to
those great and benevolent principles of Nature by which the universe
is regulated. But were there a constantly operating tendency to these
calamitous occurrences; did we feel the earth beneath us tremulous, and
giving ceaseless and certain tokens of the coming catastrophe of
Nature; were the hurricane heard mustering its devasta