e
received from Jupiter, at the same time, a box from which, when opened,
a multitude of disorders sprung, and that these spread themselves
immediately afterwards among all of the human race. Thus it appears,
whatever authorities we consult, that those which may be termed the
evils of life existed in the earliest times. And what does subsequent
history, combined with our own experience, tell us, but that these have
been continued, or that they have come down in different degrees through
successive generations of men, in all the known countries of the
universe, to the present day?

But though the inequality visible in the different conditions of life,
and the passions interwoven into our nature, (both which have been
allotted to us for wise purposes, and without which we could not easily
afford a proof of the existence of that, which is denominated virtue,)
have a tendency to produce vice and wretchedness among us, yet we see,
in this our constitution, what may operate partially as preventives and
corrective of them. If there be a radical propensity in our nature to do
that which is wrong, there is, on the other hand, a counteracting power
within it, or an impulse by means of the action of the divine Spirit
upon our minds, which urges us to do that which is right. If the voice
of temptation, clothed in musical and seducing accents, charms us one
way, the voice of holiness, speaking to us from within, in a solemn and
powerful manner, commands us another. Does one man obtain a victory over
his corrupt affections? an immediate perception of pleasure, like the
feeling of a reward divinely conferred upon him, is noticed. Does
another fall prostrate beneath their power? a painful feeling, and such
as pronounces to him the sentence of reproof and punishment is found to
follow. If one, by suffering his heart to become hardened, oppresses a
fellow-creature, the tear of sympathy starts up in the eye of another,
and the latter instantly feels a desire, involuntarily generated, of
flying to his relief. Thus impulses, feelings, and dispositions have
been implanted in our nature, for the purpose of preventing and
rectifying the evils of life. And as these have operated, so as to
stimulate some men to lessen them by the exercise of an amiable charity,
so they have operated to stimulate others in various other ways to the
same end. Hence the philosopher has left moral precepts behind him in
favour of benevolence, and the legislator has