 Part 7 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 7. But here, continued Philo, in examining the ancient system of the soul of the world, there strikes me, all on a sudden, a new idea which, if just, must go near to subvert all your reasoning and destroy even your first inferences on which you oppose such confidence. If the world bears a greater likeness to animal bodies and to vegetables than to the works of human art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of the former than that of the latter, and its origin ought rather to be ascribed to generation or vegetation than to reason or design. Your conclusion, even according to your own principles, is therefore lame and defective. Pray open up this argument a little further, said Damiah, for I do not rightly apprehend it in that concise manner in which you have expressed it. Our friend Cleanthes, replied Philo, as you have heard, asserts that since no question effect can be proved otherwise than by experience, the existence of a deity admits not of proof from any other medium. The world, says he, resembles the works of human contrivance, therefore its cause must also resemble that of the other. Here we may remark that the operation of one very small part of nature, to wit man, upon another very small part, to wit that inanimate matter lying within his reach, is the rule by which Cleanthes judges of the origin of the whole, and he measures objects so widely disproportioned by the same individual standard. But to waive all objections drawn from this topic, I affirm that there are other parts of the universe, besides the machines of human invention, which bear still a greater resemblance to the fabric of the world, and which therefore afford a better conjecture concerning the universal origin of the system. These parts are animals and vegetables. The world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable than it does a watch or knitting loom. Its cause, therefore, it is more probable, resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the former is generation or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the world, we may infer to be something similar or analogous to generation or vegetation. But how is it conceivable, said Demia, that the world can arise from anything similar to vegetation or generation? Very easily, replied Philo, in like manner as a tree sheds its seeds into the neighboring fields and produces other trees, so the great vegetable, the world, or this planetary system produces within itself certain seeds, which, being scattered into the surrounding chaos, create into new worlds. A comet, for instance, is the seed of a world, and after it has been fully ripened by passing from sun to sun and star to star, it is at last tossed into the unformed elements which everywhere surround this universe and immediately spreads up into a new system. Or if, for the sake of variety, for I see no other advantage, we should suppose this world to be an animal, a comet is the egg of this animal, and in like manner as an ostrich lays its egg in the sand, which, without any further care, hatches the egg and produces a new animal, so I understand you, says Demia. But what wild, arbitrary suppositions are these? What data have you for such extraordinary conclusions? And is the slight imaginary resemblance of the world to a vegetable or an animal sufficient to establish the same inference with regard to both? Objects, which are in general so widely different, ought they to be a standard for each other? Right, cries Philo, this is the topic on which I have all along insisted. I have still asserted that we have no data to establish any system of cosmogony. Our experience, so imperfect in itself, and so limited both in extent and duration, can afford us no probable conjecture concerning the whole of things. But if we must need fix on some hypothesis, by what rule, pray, ought we to determine our choice? Is there any other rule than the greater similarity of the objects compared? And does not a plant or an animal, which springs from vegetation or generation, bear a stronger resemblance to the world, than does any artificial machine, which arises from reason and design? But what is this vegetation and generation of which you talk? Said Demia. Can you explain their operations and anatomize that fine internal structure on which they depend? As much, at least, replied Philo, as Cleantis can explain the operations of reason, or anatomize that internal structure on which it depends. But without any such elaborate disquisitions, when I see an animal, I infer that it's spring from generation, and that with as great certainty as you conclude a house to have been reared by design. These words, generation and reason, mark only certain powers and energies in nature, whose effects are known, but whose essence is incomprehensible. And one of these principles, more than the other, has no privilege for being made a standard for the whole of nature. In reality, Demia, it may reasonably be expected that the larger the views are which we take of things, the better will they conduct us in our conclusions concerning such extraordinary and such magnificent subjects. In this little corner of the world alone, there are four principles, reason, instinct, generation, vegetation, which are similar to each other, and are the causes of similar effects. What a number of other principles may we naturally suppose, in the immense extent and variety of the universe, could we travel from planet to planet, and from system to system, in order to examine each part of this mighty fabric. Any one of these four principles above mentioned, and a hundred others which lie open to our conjecture, may afford us a theory by which to judge the origin of the world, and it is a palpable and egregious partiality to confine our view entirely to that principle by which our own minds operate. Were this principle more intelligible on that account, such a partiality might be somewhat excusable, but reason in its internal fabric and structure is really as little known to us as instinct or vegetation, and perhaps even that vague, undeterminate word, nature, to which the vulgar refer everything, is not at the bottom more inexplicable. The effects of these principles are all known to us from experience, but the principles themselves and their manner of operation are totally unknown, nor is it less intelligible or less conformable to experience, to say that the world arose by vegetation, from a seed shed by another world, than to say it arose from a divine reason or contrivance, according to the sense in which Cleante's understands it. But me thinks, said Demia, if the world had a vegetative quality and could sow the seeds of new worlds into the infinite chaos, this power would be still an additional argument for design and its author, for whence could arise so wonderful a faculty but from design, or how can order spring from anything which perceives not that order which it bestows? You need only look around you, replied Philo, to satisfy yourself with regard to this question. A tree bestows order and organization on that tree which springs from it without knowing the order, and an animal in the same manner on its offspring, a bird on its nest, and instances of this kind are even more frequent in the world in those of order which arise from reason and contrivance. To say that all this order in animals and vegetables proceeds ultimately from design is begging the question, nor can that great point be ascertained otherwise than by proving a priori, both that order is from its nature and separately attached to thought, and that it can never of itself or from original unknown principles belong to matter. But further, Demia, this objection which you urge can never be made use of by clientes without renouncing a defense which he has already made against one of my objections. When I inquired concerning the cause of that supreme reason and intelligence into which he resolves everything, he told me that the impossibility of satisfying such inquiries could never be admitted as an objection in any species of philosophy. We must stop somewhere, says he, nor is it ever within the reach of human capacity to explain ultimate causes or show the last connections of any objects. It is sufficient if any steps so far as we go are supported by experience and observation. Now that vegetation and generation as well as reason are experienced to be principles of order and nature is undeniable. If I risk my system of cosmogony on the former, preferably to the latter, it is at my choice. The matter seems entirely arbitrary. And when Cleante's asked me what is the cause of my great vegetative or generative faculty, I am equally entitled to ask him the cause of his great reasoning principle. These questions we have agreed to forbear on both sides, and it is chiefly his interest on the present occasion to stick to this agreement. Judging by our limited and imperfect experience, generation has some privileges above reason, for we see every day the latter arise from the former, never the former from the latter. Compare, I beseech you, the consequences on both sides. The world, say I, resembles an animal. Therefore it is an animal. Therefore it arose from generation. The steps I confess are wide, yet there is some small appearance of analogy in each step. The world, says Cleante's, resembles a machine. Therefore it is a machine. Therefore it arose from design. The steps are here equally wide, and the analogy less striking. And if he pretends to carry on my hypothesis a step further, and to infer design or reason from the great principle of generation on which I insist, I may, with better authority, use the same freedom to push farther his hypothesis, and infer divine generation or theogony from his principle of reason. I have at least some faint shadow of experience, which is the utmost that can ever be attained in the present subject. Reason, in innumerable instances, is observed to arise from the principle of generation, and never to arise from any other principle. He seed and all the ancient mythologists were so struck with this analogy that they universally explain the origin of nature from an animal birth and copulation. Plato, too, so far as he is intelligible, seems to have adopted some such notion in his timeus. The Braumans assert that the world arose from an infinite spider, who spun this whole complicated mass from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole or any part of it by absorbing it again and resolving it into his own essence. Here is a species of cosmogony which appears to us ridiculous, because a spider is a little contemptible animal, whose operations we are never likely to take for a model of the whole universe. But still here is a new species of analogy, even in our globe. And were there a planet wholly inhabited by spiders, which is very possible, this inference would there appear as natural and irrefutable, as that which in our planet ascribes the origin of all things to design and intelligence, as explained by Clanthes. Why an orderly system may not be spun from the belly as well as from the brain, it will be difficult for him to give a satisfactory reason. I must confess, Philo, replied Clanthes, that of all men living, the task which you have undertaken of raising doubts and objections suits you best, and seems in a manner natural and unavoidable to you, so great is your fertility of invention, that I am not ashamed to acknowledge myself unable, on a sudden, to solve regularly such out-of-the-way difficulties as you incessantly start upon me, though I clearly see in general their fallacy and error. And I question not, but you are yourself, at present, in the same case, and have not the solution so ready as the objection. While you must be sensible, that common sense and reason are entirely against you, and that such whimsies as you have delivered may puzzle, but never can convince us. End of Part 7 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. Part 8 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 8. What you ascribe to the fertility of my invention, replied Philo, is entirely owing to the nature of the subject. In subjects adapted to the narrow compass of human reason, there is commonly but one determination which carries probability or conviction with it. And to a man of sound judgment, all other suppositions but that one appear entirely absurd and chimerical. But in such questions as the present, a hundred contradictory views may preserve a kind of imperfect analogy, and invention has here full scope to exert itself. Without any great effort of thought, I believe that I could, in an instant, propose other systems of cosmogony which would have some faint appearance of truth, though it is a thousand, a million to one, if either yours or any of mine be the true system. For instance, what if I should revive the old Epicurean hypothesis? This is commonly, and I believe justly, esteem the most absurd system that has yet been proposed. Yet I know not whether, with a few alterations, it might not be brought to bear a faint appearance of probability. Instead of supposing matter infinite as Epicurus did, let us suppose it finite. A finite number of particles is only susceptible of finite transpositions, and it must happen in an eternal duration that every possible order or position must be tried an infinite number of times. This world, therefore, with all its events, even the most minute, has before been produced and destroyed, and will again be produced and destroyed without any bounds and limitations. No one who has a conception of the powers of infinite in comparison of finite will ever scruple this determination. But this supposes, said Demia, that matter can acquire motion without any voluntary agent or first mover. And where is the difficulty, replied Philo, of that supposition? Every event before experience is equally difficult and incomprehensible, and every event after experience is equally easy and intelligible. Motion, in many instances, from gravity, from elasticity, from electricity, begins in matter, without any known voluntary agent. And to suppose always, in these cases, an unknown voluntary agent is mere hypothesis, and hypothesis attended with no advantages. The beginning of motion in matter itself is as conceivable a priori as its communication from mind and intelligence. Besides, why may not motion have been propagated by impulse through all eternity and the same stock of it, or nearly the same, still be upheld in the universe? As much is lost by the composition of motion as much is gained by its resolution. And whatever the causes are, the fact is certain that matter is and always has been in continual agitation, as far as human experience or tradition reaches. There is not probably, at present, in the whole universe one particle of matter at absolute rest. In this very consideration too, continued Philo, which we have stumbled on in the course of the argument, suggests a new hypothesis of cosmogony that is not absolutely absurd and improbable. Is there a system, an order, an economy of things, by which matter can preserve that perpetual agitation, which seems essential to it, and yet maintain a constancy in the forms which it produces? There certainly is such an economy, for this is actually the case with the present world. The continual motion of matter, therefore, in less than infinite transpositions, must produce this economy or order, and by its very nature, that order, when once established, supports itself for many ages, if not to eternity. But wherever matter is so poised, arranged and adjusted, as to continue in perpetual motion, and yet preserve a constancy in its forms, its situation must, of necessity, have all the same appearance of art and contrivance, which we observe at present. All the parts of each form must have a relation to each other, and to the whole, and the whole itself must have a relation to the other parts of the universe, to the element in which the form subsists, to the materials with which it repairs its waste and decay, and to every other form which is hostile or friendly. A defect in any of these particulars destroys the form, and the matter of which it is composed is, again, set loose, and is thrown into irregular motions and fermentations, till it unites itself to some other regular form. If no such form be prepared to receive it, and if there be a great quantity of this corrupted matter in the universe, the universe itself is entirely disordered, whether it be the feeble embryo of a world in its first beginnings that is thus destroyed, or the rotten carcass of one languishing in old age and infirmity. In either case a chaos ensues, till finite, though innumerable revolutions produce at last some forms whose parts and organs are so adjusted as to support the forms amidst a continued succession of matter. Suppose, for we shall endeavor to vary the expression, that matter were thrown into any position by a blind, unguided force. It is evident that this first position must, in all probability, be the most confused and most disorderly imaginable, without any resemblance to those works of human contrivance, which, along with the symmetry of parts, discover an arrangement of means to ends, and a tendency to self-preservation. If the actuating force cease after this operation, matter must remain forever in disorder, and continue an immense chaos without any proportion or activity. But suppose that the actuating force, whatever it be, still continues in matter, this first position will immediately give place to a second, which will likewise, in all probability, be as disorderly as the first, and so on through many successions of changes and revolutions. No particular order or position ever continues a moment unaltered. The original force, still remaining inactivity, gives a perpetual restlessness to matter. Every possible situation is produced and instantly destroyed. If a glimpse or dawn of order appears for a moment, it is instantly hurried away, and confounded, by that never ceasing force which actuates every part of matter. Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a continued succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last, so as not to lose its motion an active force, for that we have supposed inherent in it, yet so as to preserve a uniformity of appearance, amidst the continual motion and fluctuation of its parts. This we find to be the case with the universe at present. Every individual is perpetually changing, in every part of every individual, and yet the whole remains, in appearance the same. May we not hope for such a position, or rather be assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter, and may not this account for all the appearing wisdom and contrivance which is in the universe? Let us contemplate the subject a little, and we shall find that this adjustment, if attained by matter of a seeming stability in the forms, with a real and perpetual revolution or motion of parts, affords a plausible, if not a true solution of the difficulty. It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each other. I would faint know how an animal could subsist, unless its parts were so adjusted. Do we not find that it immediately perishes whenever this adjustment ceases, and that its matter, corrupting, tries some new form? It happens indeed that the parts of the world are so well adjusted that some regular form immediately lays claim to this corrupted matter, and if it were not so, could the world subsist? Must it not dissolve as well as the animal and pass through new positions and situations, till in great but finite succession it falls at last into the present or some such order? It is well, replied Clanthys, you told us that this hypothesis was suggested on a sudden in the course of the argument. Had you had leisure to examine it, you would soon have perceived the insuperable objections to which it is exposed. No form, you say, can subsist unless it possesses those powers and organs requisite for its subsistence. Some new order or economy must be tried, and so on without intermission, till at last some order which can support and maintain itself is fallen upon. But according to this hypothesis, whence arise the many conveniences and advantages which men and all animals possess? Two eyes, two ears, are not absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the species. Human race might have been propagated and preserved without horses, dogs, cows, sheep, and those innumerable fruits and products which serve to our satisfaction and enjoyment. If no camels had been created for the use of man in the sandy deserts of Africa and Arabia, would the world have been dissolved? If no lodestone had been framed to give that wonderful and useful direction to the needle, would human society and the humankind have been immediately extinguished? Though the maxims of nature be in general very frugal, yet instances of this kind are far from being rare, and any one of them is a sufficient proof of design, and of a benevolent design which gave rise to the order and arrangement of the universe. At least you may safely infer, said Philo, that the foregoing hypothesis is so far incomplete and imperfect, which I shall not scruple to allow. But can we ever reasonably expect greater success in any attempt of this nature? Or can we ever hope to erect a system of cosmogony that will be liable to no exceptions, and will contain no circumstance repugnant to our limited and imperfect experience of the analogy of nature? Your theory itself cannot surely pretend to any such advantage, even though you have run into anthropomorphism, the better to preserve a conformity to common experience. Let us once more put it to the trial. In all instances which we have ever seen, ideas are copied from real objects, and are act-typal, not archetypal, to express myself in learned terms. You reverse this order and give thought to the precedents. In all instances which we have ever seen, thought has no influence upon matter, except where that matter is so conjoined with it as to have an equal reciprocal influence upon it. No animal can move immediately anything but the members of its own body, and indeed the equality of action and reaction seems to be a universal law of nature. But your theory implies a contradiction to this experience. These instances, with many more, which it were easy to collect, particularly the supposition of a mind or system of thought that is eternal, or in other words, an animal in generable and immortal, these instances I say may teach all of us sobriety in condemning each other, and let us see that as no system of this kind ought ever to be received from a slight analogy, so neither ought any to be rejected on account of a small incongruity, for that is an inconvenience from which we can justly pronounce no one to be exempted. All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in its turn, while he carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole, prepare a complete triumph for the skeptic, who tells them that no system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects, for this plain reason, that no absurdity ought ever to be assented to with regard to any subject. A total suspense of judgment is here our only reasonable resource. And if every attack, as is commonly observed, and no defense among theologians, is successful, how complete must be his victory, who remains always with all mankind on the offensive, and has himself no fixed station or abiding city which he is ever, on any occasion, obliged to defend. End of Part 8 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. Part 9 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 9. But if so many difficulties attend the argument Aposteriori, said Demia, had we better not adhere to that simple and sublime argument Apriori, which by offering to us infallible demonstration, cuts off at once all doubt and difficulty? By this argument, too, we may prove the infinity of the divine attributes, which I am afraid can never be ascertained with certainty from any other topic. For how can an effect which either is finite or farot we know may be so, how can such an effect, I say, prove an infinite cause? The unity, too, of the divine nature, it is very difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to deduce merely from contemplating the works of nature, nor will the uniformity alone of the plan, even were it allowed, give us any assurance of that attribute. Whereas the argument Apriori, you seem to reason, Demia, interposed Clanthes, as if those advantages and conveniences in the abstract argument were full proofs of its solidity. But it is first proper, in my opinion, to determine what argument of this nature you choose to insist on, and we shall afterwards, from itself, better than from its useful consequences, endeavour to determine what value we ought to put upon it. The argument, replied Demia, which I would insist on, is the common one. Whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence, it being absolutely impossible for anything to produce itself, or be the cause of its own existence. In mounting up, therefore, from effects to causes, we must either go on in tracing an infinite succession without any ultimate cause at all, or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause that is necessarily existent. Now that the first supposition is absurd may be thus proved. In the infinite chain or succession of causes and effects, each single effect is determined to exist by the power and efficacy of that cause which immediately preceded. But the whole eternal chain or succession taken together is not determined or caused by anything, and yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time. The question is still reasonable why this particular succession of causes existed from eternity and not any other succession, or no succession at all. If there be no necessarily existent being, any supposition which can be formed is equally possible. Nor is there any more absurdity in nothings having existed from eternity than there is in that succession of causes which constitutes the universe. What was it then which determined something to exist rather than nothing, and bestowed being on a particular possibility exclusive of the rest? External causes there are supposed to be none. Chance is a word without a meaning. Was it nothing? But that can never produce anything. We must, therefore, have recourse to a necessarily existent being who carries the reason of his existence and himself, and who cannot be supposed not to exist without an express contradiction. There is consequently such a being, that is, there is a deity. I shall not leave it to Philo, said Clanthys, though I know that the starting objections is his chief delight, to point out the weaknesses of this metaphysical reasoning. It seems to me so obviously ill-grounded, and at the same time of so little consequence to the cause of true piety and religion, that I shall myself venture to show the fallacy of it. I shall begin with observing that there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by any arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction. Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently, there is no being whose existence is demonstrable. I propose this argument as entirely decisive, and am willing to rest the whole controversy upon it. It is pretended that the deity is a necessarily existent being, and that this necessity of his existence is attempted to be explained by asserting that if we knew his whole essence or nature, we should perceive it to be as impossible for him not to exist, as for twice to not to be fore. But it is evident that this can never happen, while our faculties remain the same as at present. It will still be possible for us, at any time, to conceive the non-existence of what we formerly conceived to exist, nor can the mind ever lie under a necessity of supposing any object to remain always in being, in the same manner as we lie under a necessity of always conceiving twice to to be fore. The words, therefore, necessary existence have no meaning, or which is the same thing, none that is consistent. But further, why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent being, according to this pretended explication of necessity? We dare not affirm that we know all the qualities of matter, and for all we can determine, it may contain some qualities which, were they known, would make its non-existence appear as great a contradiction as that twice to is five. I find only one argument employed to prove that the material world is not the necessarily existent being, and this argument is derived from the contingency both of the matter and the form of the world. Quote, any particle of matter, it is said, may be conceived to be annihilated, and any form may be conceived to be altered. Such an annihilation or alteration, therefore, is not impossible. Unquote. But it seems a great partiality not to perceive that the same argument extends equally to the deity, so far as we have any conception of him, and that the mind can at least imagine him to be non-existent, or his attributes to be altered. It must be some unknown inconceivable qualities, which can make his non-existence appear impossible, or his attributes unalterable, and no reason can be assigned why these qualities may not belong to matter. As they are altogether unknown and inconceivable, they can never be proved incompatible with it. Add to this that in tracing an eternal succession of objects, it seems absurd to inquire for a general cause or first author. How can anything that exists from eternity have a cause, since that relation implies a priority in time, and a beginning of existence? In such a chain, too, or a succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes that which sexes it, where then is the difficulty? But the whole, you say, wants a cause. I answer that the uniting of these parts into a whole, like the uniting of several distinct countries into one kingdom, or several distinct members into one body, is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things. Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter? I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts. Though the reasonings which you have urged, Cleanthes, may well excuse me, said Philo, from starting any further difficulties, yet I cannot forbear insisting still upon another topic. It is observed by arithmeticians that the products of nine compose always either nine or some lesser product of nine, if you add together all the characters of which any of the former products is composed. Thus, of eighteen, twenty-seven, thirty-six, which are products of nine, you make nine by adding one to eight, two to seven, three to six. Thus, three hundred and sixty-nine is also a product of nine, and if you add three, six, and nine, you make eighteen, a lesser product of nine. To a superficial observer so wonderful a regularity may be admired as the effect either of chance or design, but a skillful algebraist immediately concludes it to be the work of necessity and demonstrates that it must forever result from the nature of these numbers. Is it not probable, I ask, that the whole economy of the universe is conducted by a like necessity, though no human algebra can furnish a key which solves the difficulty? And instead of admiring the order of natural beings, may it not happen that could we penetrate into the intimate nature of bodies, we should clearly see why it was absolutely impossible they could ever admit of any other disposition. So dangerous is it to introduce this idea of necessity into the present question. And so naturally does it afford an inference directly opposite to the religious hypothesis. But dropping all these abstractions, continued Filo, and confining ourselves to more familiar topics, I shall venture to add an observation that the argument a priori has seldom been found very convincing, except to people of a metaphysical head who have accustomed themselves to abstract reasoning and who, finding from mathematics that the understanding frequently leads to truth through obscurity and, contrary to first appearances, have transferred the same habit of thinking to subjects where it ought not to have place. Other people, even of good sense and the best inclined to religion, feel always some deficiency in such arguments, though they are not perhaps able to explain distinctly where it lies. A certain proof that men ever did and ever will derive their religion from other sources than from this species of reasoning. End of Part 9 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. Part 10 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 10 It is my opinion, I own, replied Demia, that each man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breast, and from a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek perfection from that being, on whom he and all nature is dependent. So anxious or so tedious or even the best scenes of life, that futurity is still the object of all our hopes and fears. We incessantly look forward and endeavor by prayers, adoration and sacrifice to appease those unknown powers whom we find by experience so able to afflict and oppress us. Wretched creatures that we are, what resource for us amidst the innumerable ills of life did not religion suggest some methods of atonement and appease those terrors with which we are incessantly agitated and tormented. I am indeed persuaded, said Philo, that the best and indeed the only method of bringing everyone to a due sense of religion is by just representations of the misery and wickedness of men. And for that purpose a talent of eloquence and strong imagery is more requisite than that of reasoning and argument. For is it necessary to prove what everyone feels within himself? It is only necessary to make us feel it, if possible, more intimately and sensibly. The people indeed, replied Demia, are sufficiently convinced of this great and melancholy truth. The miseries of life, the unhappiness of man, the general corruptions of our nature, the unsatisfactory enjoyment of pleasures, riches, honors, these phrases have become almost proverbial in all languages. And who can doubt of what all men declare from their own immediate feeling and experience? In this point, said Philo, the learned are perfectly agreed with the vulgar. And in all letters, sacred and profane, the topic of human misery has been insisted on with the most pathetic eloquence that sorrow and melancholy could inspire. The poets, who speak from sentiment without a system and whose testimony has therefore the more authority, abound in images of this nature, from Homer down to Dr. Young, the whole inspired tribe have ever been sensible that no other representation of things would suit the feeling and observation of each individual. As to authorities, replied Demia, you need not seek them. Look round this library of Cleanthes. I shall venture to affirm that except authors of particular sciences, such as chemistry or botany, who have no occasion to treat a human life, there is scarce one of these innumerable writers, from whom the sense of human misery has not, in some passage or other, extorted a complaint and confession of it. At least the chance is entirely on that side. And no one author has ever, so far as I can recollect, been so extravagant as to deny it. There you must excuse me, said Philo. Leibniz has denied it, and is perhaps the first who ventured upon so bold and paradoxical an opinion. At least the first who made it essential to his philosophical system. And by being the first, replied Demia, might he not have been sensible of his error? For is this a subject in which philosophers can propose to make discoveries, especially in so late an age? And can any man hope by a simple denial for the subject scarcely admits a reasoning to bear down the united testimony of mankind founded on sense and consciousness? And why should man, added he, pretend to an exemption from the lot of all other animals? The whole earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed and polluted. A perpetual war has kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger, want, stimulate the strong and courageous. Fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the newborn infant and to its wretched parent. Weakness, impudence, distress attend each stage of that life. And it is at last finished in agony and horror. Observe too, says Philo, the curious artifices of nature in order to embitter the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the weaker and keep them in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too in their turn often prey upon the stronger and vex and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable race of insects which either are bred on the body of each animal or are flying about and fix their stings in him. These insects have others still less than themselves which torment them. And thus on each hand before and behind, above and below, every animal is surrounded with enemies which incessantly seek his misery and destruction. Man alone, said Demia, seems to be in part an exception to this rule. For by combination in society he can easily master lions, tigers, and bears whose greater strength and agility naturally enable them to prey upon him. On the contrary, it is here chiefly, cried Philo, that the uniform and equal maxims of nature are most apparent. Man, it is true, can by combination surmount all as real enemies and become master of the whole animal creation. But does he not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies, the demons of his fancy who haunt him with superstitious terrors and blast every enjoyment of life? His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes in their eyes a crime. His food and repose give them umbrage in offense. His very sleep and dreams furnish new materials to anxious fear and even death his refuge from every other ill presents only the dread of endless and innumerable woes. Nor does the wolf molest more the timid flock than superstition does the anxious beast of wretched mortals. Besides, consider Demia, this very society by which we surmount those wild beasts, our natural enemies, what new enemies does it not raise to us? What woe and misery does it not occasion? Man is the greatest enemy of man. Oppression and justice contempt, contumely, violence, sedition, war, columny, treachery, fraud, by these they mutually torment each other and they would soon dissolve that society which they had formed were not for the dread of still greater ills which must attend their separation. But though these external insults, said Demia, from animals, from men, from all the elements which assault us form a frightful catalog of woes, they are nothing in comparison of those which arise within ourselves from the distempered condition of our mind and body. How many lie under the lingering torment of diseases? Hear the pathetic enumeration of the great poet. Intestine stone and ulcer colic pains, demoniac frenzy moping melancholy and moonstruck madness, pining atrophy, mirasmus and wide-wasting pestilence, dire was the tossing, deep the groans, despair tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch, and over them triumphant death his dart shook, but delayed to strike, though often invoked with vows as their chief good and final hope. The disorders of the mind continued Demia, though more secret, are not perhaps less dismal and vexatious. Remorse, shame, anguish, rage, disappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, despair. Who has ever passed through life without cruel inroads from these tormentors? How many have scarcely ever felt any better sensations? Labor and poverty, so abhorred by everyone, are the common lot of the far greater number. And those few privileged persons who enjoy ease and opulence never reach contentment or true felicity. All the goods of life united would not make a very happy man, but all the ills united would make a wretch indeed. And any one of them almost, and who can be free from every one, may often the absence of one good and who can possess all is sufficient to render life ineligible. We're a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world. I would show him as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malifactors and debtors, a field of battle shrewd with carcasses, a fleet floundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him and give him a notion of its pleasures, whether should I conduct him? To a ball? To an opera? To court? He might justly think that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow. There is no evading such striking circumstances, said Philo. But by apologies, which still further aggravate the charge. Why have all men, I ask, in all ages complained incessantly of the miseries of life? They have no just reason, says one. These complaints preceded only from their discontented, repining, anxious disposition. And can there possibly, I reply, be a more certain foundation of misery than such a wretched temper? But if they really were as unhappy as they pretend, says my antagonist, why do they remain in life? Not satisfied with life, afraid of death. This is the secret chain, say I, that holds us. We are terrified, not bribed, to the continuance of our existence. It is only a false delicacy, he may insist, which a few refined spirits indulge, and which has spread these complaints among the whole race of mankind. And what is this delicacy, I ask, which you blame? Is it anything but a greater sensibility to all the pleasures and pains of life? And if the man of a delicate, refined temper, by being so much more alive than the rest of the world, is only so much more unhappy, what judgment must we form in general of human life? Let men remain at rest, says our adversary, and they will be easy. They are willing artificers of their own misery. No, reply I, an anxious langer follows their repose, disappointment, vexation, trouble, their activity and ambition. I can observe something like what you mentioned and some others, replied Clanthys. But I confess I feel little or nothing of it in myself and hope that it is not so common as you represent it. If you feel not human misery yourself, cried Demia, I congratulate you on so happy a singularity. Others seemingly the most prosperous have not been ashamed to vent their complaints in the most melancholy strains. Let us attend to the great, the fortunate emperor Charles V, when, tired with human grandeur, he resigned all his extensive dominions into the hands of his son. In the last harangue which he made on that memorable occasion he publicly avowed that the greatest prosperity which he had ever enjoyed had been mixed with so many adversities that he might truly say he had never enjoyed any satisfaction or contentment. But did the retired life in which he sought for shelter afford him any greater happiness? If we may credit his son's account his repentance commenced the very day of his resignation. Cicero's fortune from small beginnings rose to the greatest luster and renown, yet what pathetic complaints of the ills of life do his familiar letters as well as philosophical discourses contain. And suitably to his own experience he introduces Cato, the great, the fortunate Cato, protesting in his old age that had he a new life in his offer he would reject the present. Ask yourself, ask any of your acquaintance whether they would live over again the last ten or twenty years of their lives. No, but the next twenty they say will be better. And from the drakes of life hope to receive what the first sprightly running could not give. Thus at last they find such as the greatness of human misery it reconciles even contradictions that they complain at once of the shortness of life and of its vanity and sorrow. And is it possible, Cleanthes, said Philo, that after all these reflections and infinitely more, which might be suggested, you can still persevere in your anthropomorphism and assert the moral attributes of the deity his justice, benevolence, mercy and rectitude to be of the same nature with these virtues and human creatures? His power, we allow, is infinite. Whatever he wills is executed. But neither man nor any other animal is happy. Therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite. He is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end. But the course of nature tends not to any human or animal felicity. Therefore it is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compass of human knowledge there are no inferences more certain and infallible than these. In what respect then do his benevolence and mercy resemble the benevolence and mercy of men? Epicurus's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Wins then is evil. You ascribe Cleanthes, and I believe justly, a purpose and intention to nature. But what, I beseech you, is the object of that curious artifice and machinery which he has displayed in all animals? The preservation alone of individuals and propagation of the species. It seems enough for her purpose if such a rank be barely upheld in the universe without any care or concern for the happiness of the members that compose it. No resource for this purpose. No machinery in order merely to give pleasure or ease. No fund of pure joy and contentment. No indulgence without some one to necessity accompanying it. At least the few phenomena of this nature are overbalanced by opposite phenomena of still greater importance. Our sense of music, harmony and indeed beauty of all kinds, gives satisfaction without being absolutely necessary to the preservation and propagation of the species. But what racking pains on the other hand arise from gout, scrabbles, magrims, toothaches, rheumatisms, where the injury to the animal machinery is either small or incurable. Merth, laughter, play, frolic, seems gratuitous satisfactions which have no further tendency. Spleen, melancholy, discontent superstition are pains of the same nature. How then does the divine benevolence display itself in the sense of you anthropomorphites? None but we mystics, as you are pleased to call us, can account for the strange mixture of phenomena by deriving it from attributes infinitely perfect but incomprehensible. And have you at last, said clientes, smiling, betrayed your intentions, Vylo? Your long agreement with Dumea did indeed a little surprise me, but I find you were all the while erecting a concealed battery against me. And I must confess that you have now fallen upon a subject worthy of your noble spirit of opposition and controversy. If you can make out the present point and prove mankind to be unhappy or corrupted, there is an end at once of all religion. For to what purpose established the natural attributes of the deity while the moral are still doubtful and uncertain? You take Umbridge very easily, replied Dumea, at opinions the most innocent and the most generally received, even among the religious and devout themselves. And nothing can be more surprising than to find a topic like this concerning the wickedness and misery of man charged with no less than atheism and profaneness. Have not all pious divines and preachers who have indulged their rhetoric on so fertile a subject? Have they not easily, I say, given a solution of any difficulties which may attend it? This world is but a point in comparison of the universe, this life but a moment in comparison of eternity. The present evil phenomena, therefore, are rectified in other regions and in some future period of existence. In the eyes of men, being then open to larger views of things, see the whole connection of general laws and trace with adoration the benevolence and rectitude of the deity through all the mazes and intricacies of his providence. No, replied Clanthys. No! These arbitrary suppositions can never be admitted, contrary to matter of fact, visible and uncontroverted. Wins can any cause be known but from its known effects. Wins can any hypothesis be proved but from the apparent phenomena. To establish one hypothesis upon another is building entirely in the air and the utmost we can ever attain by these conjectures and fictions is to ascertain the bare possibility of our opinion, but never can we upon such terms establish its reality. The only method of supporting divine benevolence and it is what I willingly embrace is to deny absolutely the misery and wickedness of man. Your representations are exaggerated. Your melancholy views mostly fictitious. Your inferences contrary to fact and experience. Health is more common than sickness. Pleasure than pain. Happiness than misery. And for one vexation which we meet with we attain upon computation a hundred enjoyments. Admitting your position, replied Philo, which yet is extremely doubtful, you must at the same time allow that if pain be less frequent than pleasure it is infinitely more violent and durable. One hour of it is often able to outweigh a day, a week, a month, of our common insipid enjoyments. And how many days, weeks, and months are passed by several in the most acute torments. Pleasure scarcely in one instance is ever able to reach ecstasy and rapture and in no one instance can it continue for any time at its highest pitch and altitude. The spirits evaporate, the nerves relax, the fabric is disordered, and the enjoyment quickly degenerates into fatigue and uneasiness. But pain often, good God, how often, rises to torture and agony, and the longer it continues it becomes still more genuine agony and torture. Patience is exhausted, courageously, exhausted, courage languishes, melancholy seizes us, and nothing terminates our misery but the removal of its cause, or another event, which is the soul cure of all evil, but which, from our natural folly, we regard with still greater horror and consternation. But not to insist upon these topics, continued Philo, though most obvious, certain, and important, I must use the freedom to admonish you, Cleanthes, that you have put the controversy into the most dangerous issue, and are unawares introducing a total skepticism into the most essential articles of natural and revealed theology. What? No method of fixing a just foundation for religion unless we allow the happiness of human life and maintain a continued existence even in this world with all our present pains and firmities, vexations, and follies to be eligible and desirable. But this is contrary to everyone's feeling and experience. There is no human authority so established as nothing can subvert. No decisive proofs can ever be produced against this authority, nor is it possible for you to compute, estimate, and compare all the pains and all the pleasures in the lives of all men and of all animals, and thus by resting your whole system of religion on a point which from its very nature must forever be certain, you tacitly confess that that system is equally uncertain. But allowing you to be believed at least what you never possibly can prove that animal or at least human happiness in this life exceeds its misery, you have yet done nothing for this is not by any means what we expect from infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness. Why is there any misery at all in this world? Not by chance surely from some cause then. Is it from the intention of the deity? But he is perfectly benevolent. But he is almighty. Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning so short, so clear, so decisive except, we assert, that these subjects exceed all human capacity and that our common measures of truth and falsehood are not applicable to them. A topic which I have all along insisted on but which you have from the beginning rejected with scorn and indignation. But I will be contented for I deny that you can ever force me in it. I will allow that pain or misery in man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the deity even in your sense of these attributes. What are you advanced by all these concessions? A mere possible compatibility is not sufficient. You must prove these pure unmixed and uncontrollable attributes from the present mixed and confused phenomena and from these alone. A hopeful undertaking were the phenomena ever so pure and unmixed yet being finite they would be insufficient for that purpose. How much more where they are also so jarring and discordant. Here, Cleanthes, I find myself at ease in my argument. Here I triumph. Formerly when we argued concerning the natural attributes of intelligence and design I needed all my skeptical and metaphysical subtlety to elude your grasp. In many views of the universe and of its parts particularly the latter the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force that all objections appear what I believe they really are mere cabals and sophisms nor can we then imagine how it was ever possible for us to oppose any weight on them. But there is no view of human life or of the condition of mankind from which without the greatest violence or moral attributes or learn that infinite benevolence conjoined with infinite power and infinite wisdom which we must discover by the eyes of faith alone. It is your turn now to tug the laboring horror and to support your philosophical subtleties against the dictates of plain reason and experience. End of Part 10 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume Part 11 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Leon Meyer Part 11 I Scrooble Not to Allow said Cleantheys that I have been apt to suspect the frequent repetition of the word infinite meet with in all theological writers, to savor more of panagiric than of philosophy, and that any purposes of reasoning, and even of religion, would be better served were we to rest contented with more accurate and more moderate expressions. The terms admirable, excellent, superlatively great, wise, and holy, these sufficiently fill the imaginations of men, and anything beyond, besides that it leads into absurdities, has no influence on the affections or sentiments. Thus, in the present subject, if we abandon all human analogy, as seems your intention, Demia, I am afraid we abandon all religion, and retain no conception of the great object of our adoration. If we preserve human analogy, we must forever find it impossible to reconcile any mixture of evil in the universe with infinite attributes. Much less can we ever prove the latter from the former. But supposing the author of nature to be finitely perfect, though far exceeding mankind, a satisfactory account may then be given of natural and moral evil, and every untoward phenomenon be explained and adjusted. A less evil may then be chosen, in order to avoid a greater, inconveniences be submitted to, in order to reach a desirable end, and, in a word, benevolence regulated by wisdom, and limited by necessity, may produce just such a world as the present. You, Philo, who are so prompt at starting views, and reflections, and analogies, I would gladly hear, at length, without interruption, your opinion of this new theory, and if it deserves our attention, we may afterwards, at more leisure, reduce it into form. My sentiments, replied Philo, are not worth being made a mystery of, and therefore, without any ceremony, I shall deliver what occurs to me with regard to the present subject. It must, I think, be allowed, that if a very limited intelligence, whom we shall suppose utterly unacquainted with the universe, were assured that it were the production of a very good, wise, and powerful being, however finite, he would, from his conjectures, form beforehand a different notion of it from what we find it to be by experience, nor would he ever imagine, merely from these attributes of the cause, of which he is informed, that the effect could be so full of vice, and misery, and disorder, as it appears in this life. Supposing now, that this person were brought into the world, still assured that it was the workmanship of such a sublime and benevolent being, he might, perhaps, be surprised at the disappointment, but would never retract his former belief, if founded on any very solid argument, since such a limited intelligence must be sensible of his own blindness and ignorance, and must allow, that there may be many solutions of those phenomena which will forever escape his comprehension. But supposing, which is the real case with regard to man, that this creature is not antecedently convinced of a supreme intelligence, benevolent and powerful, but is left to gather such a belief from the appearance of things, this entirely alters the case, nor will he ever find any reason for such a conclusion. He may be fully convinced of the narrow limits of his understanding, but this will not help him in forming an inference concerning the goodness of superior powers, since he must form that inference from what he knows, not from what he is ignorant of. The more you exaggerate his weakness and ignorance, the more diffident you render him, and give him the greater suspicion that such objects are beyond the reach of his faculties. You are obliged, therefore, to reason with him merely from the known phenomena, and to drop every arbitrary supposition or conjecture. Did I show you a house or palace, where there was not one apartment convenient or agreeable, where the windows, doors, fires, passages, stairs, and the whole economy of the building were the source of noise, confusion, fatigue, darkness, and the extremes of heat and cold, you would certainly blame the contrivance without any further examination. The architect would in vain display a subtlety, and prove to you that if this door or that window were altered greater ills would ensue. What he says may be strictly true. The alteration of one particular, while the other parts of the building remain, may only augment the inconveniences. But still you would assert in general that if the architect had had skill and good intentions, he might have formed such a plan of the whole, and might have adjusted the parts in such a manner as would have remedied all or most of these inconveniences. His ignorance, or even your own ignorance of such a plan, will never convince you of the impossibility of it. If you find any inconveniences and deformities in the building, you will always, without entering into any detail, condemn the architect. In short I repeat the question, is the world considered in general, and as it appears to us in this life, different from what a man or such a limited being would beforehand expect from a very powerful, wise, and benevolent deity. It must be strange prejudice to assert the contrary, and from thence I conclude that however consistent the world may be, allowing certain suppositions and conjectures, with the idea of such a deity, it can never afford us an inference concerning his existence. The consistency is not absolutely denied, only the inference. Conjectures, especially where infinity is excluded from the divine attributes, may perhaps be sufficient to prove a consistency, but can never be the foundations for any inference. There seems to be four circumstances, on which depend all, or the greatest part of the ills, that molest sensible creatures, and it is not impossible, but all these circumstances may be necessary and unavoidable. We know so little beyond common life, or even of common life, that with regard to the economy of a universe there is no conjecture, however wild, which may not be just, nor anyone, however plausible, which may not be erroneous. All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be skeptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability. Now this I assert to be the case with regard to all the causes of evil, and the circumstances on which it depends. None of them appear to human reason in the least degree necessary or unavoidable, nor can we suppose them such without the utmost license of imagination. The first circumstance which introduces evil is that contrivance or economy of the animal creation by which pains, as well as pleasures, are employed to excite all creatures to action, and make them vigilant in the great work of self-preservation. Now pleasure alone, in its various degrees, seems to human understanding sufficient for this purpose. All animals might be constantly in a state of enjoyment, but when urged by any of the necessities of nature, such as thirst, hunger, weariness, instead of pain they might feel a diminution of pleasure, by which they might be prompted to seek that object which is necessary to their subsistence. Men pursue pleasure as eagerly as they avoid pain, at least they might have been so constituted. It seems therefore plainly possible to carry on the business of life without any pain. Why then is any animal ever rendered susceptible of such a sensation? If animals can be free from it an hour they might enjoy a perpetual exemption from it, and it required as particular a contrivance of their organs to produce that feeling as to endow them with sight, hearing, or any of the senses. Shall we conjecture that such a contrivance was necessary without any appearance of reason, and shall we build on that conjecture, as on the most certain truth? But a capacity for pain would not alone produce pain, were it not for the second circumstance of Adelausette the conducting of the world by general laws, and this seems no wise necessary to a very perfect being. It is true, if everything were conducted by particular volitions, the course of nature would be perpetually broken, and no man could employ his reason in the conduct of life. But might not other particular volitions remedy this inconvenience? In short, might not the deity exterminate all ill, wherever ill were to be found, and produce all good without any preparation, or long progress of causes and effects? Besides, we must consider that according to the present economy of the world, the course of nature, though supposed exactly regular, yet to us appears not so, and many events are uncertain, and many disappoint our expectations. Health and sickness, calm and tempest, with an infinite number of other accidents, whose causes are unknown and variable, have a great influence both on the fortunes of particular persons and on the prosperity of public societies, and indeed all human life in a manner depends on such accidents. A being therefore, who knows the secret springs of the universe, might easily, by particular volitions, turn all these accidents to the good of mankind, and render the whole world happy without discovering himself in any operation. A fleet whose purposes were salutary to society might always meet with a fair wind. Good princes enjoy sound health and long life. Persons born to power and authority be framed with good tempers and virtuous dispositions. A few such events as these, regularly and wisely conducted, would change the face of the world, and yet would no more seem to disturb the course of nature or confound human conduct than the present economy of things, where the causes are secret and variable and compounded. Some small touches given to Caligula's brain in his infancy might have converted him into a trajan. One wave a little higher than the rest, by burying Caesar and his fortune in the bottom of the ocean, might have restored liberty to a considerable part of mankind. There may, for ought we know, be good reasons why Providence interposes not in this manner, but they are unknown to us, and though the mere supposition that such reasons exist may be sufficient to save the conclusion concerning the divine attributes, yet surely it can never be sufficient to establish that conclusion. If everything in the universe be conducted by general laws, and if animals be rendered susceptible of pain, it scarcely seems possible but some ill must arise in the various shocks of matter, in the various concurrence and opposition of general laws. But this ill would be very rare, which I propose to mention, Videliset, the great frugality with which all powers and faculties are distributed to every particular being. So well adjusted are the animals and capacities of all animals, and so well fitted to their preservation, that as far as history or tradition reaches, there appears not to be any single species which has yet been extinguished in the universe. Every animal has the requisite endowments, but these endowments are bestowed with so scrupulous an economy that any considerable diminution must entirely destroy the creature. Wherever one power is increased there is a proportional abatement in the others. Animals which excel in swiftness are commonly defective in force. Those which possess both are either imperfect in some of their senses, or are oppressed with the most craving once. The human species, whose chief excellency is reason and sagacity, is of all others the most necessitous, and the most deficient in bodily advantages, without clothes, without arms, without food, without lodging, without any convenience of life, except what they owe to their own skill and industry. In short, nature seems to have formed an exact calculation of the necessities of her creatures, and, like a rigid master, has afforded them little more powers or endowments than what are strictly sufficient to supply those necessities. An indulgent parent would have bestowed a large stock in order to guard against accidents and secure the happiness and welfare of the creature in the most unfortunate concurrence of circumstances. Every course of life would not have been so surrounded with precipices, that at the least departure from the true path, by mistake or necessity, must involve us in misery and ruin. Some reserve, some fund, would have been provided to ensure happiness, nor would the powers and the necessities have been adjusted with so rigid an economy. The author of nature is inconceivably powerful. His force is supposed great, if not altogether inexhaustible. Nor is there any reason, as far as we can judge, to make him observe the strict frugality in his dealings with his creatures. It would have been better were his power extremely limited to have created fewer animals, and to have endowed these with more faculties for their happiness and preservation. A builder is never esteemed prudent, who undertakes a plan beyond what his stock will enable him to finish. In order to cure most of the ills of human life, I require not that man should have the wings of the eagle, the swiftness of the stag, the force of the ox, the arms of the lion, the scales of the crocodile or rhinoceros. Much less do I demand the sagacity of an angel or chariobim. I am contented to take an increase in one single power or faculty of his soul. Let him be endowed with a greater propensity to industry and labor, a more vigorous spring and activity of mind, a more constant bent to business and application. Let the whole species possess naturally an equal diligence without which many individuals are able to attain by habit and reflection, and the most beneficial consequences without any alloy of ill is the immediate and necessary result of this endowment. Almost all the moral as well as natural evils of human life arise from idleness, and where our species by the original constitution of their frame, exempt from this vice or infirmity, the perfect cultivation of land, the improvement of arts and manufacturers, the exact execution of every office and duty immediately follow, and men at once may fully reach that state of society which is so imperfectly attained by the best regulated government. But as industry is a power, and the most valuable of any, nature seems determined, suitably to her usual maxims, to bestow it on men with a very sparing hand, and rather to punish him severely for his deficiency in it than to reward him for his attainments. She is so contrived his frame that nothing but the most violent necessity can oblige him to labor, and she employs all his other ones to overcome, at least in part, the want of diligence, and to endow him with some share of a faculty which she has thought naturally to bereave him. Here our demands may be allowed very humble, and therefore the more reasonable. If we required the endowments of superior penetration and judgment of a more delicate taste of beauty, of a nicer sensibility to benevolence and friendship, we might be told that we impiously pretend to break the order of nature, that we want to exalt ourselves into a higher rank of being, that the presence which we require not being suitable to our state and condition would only be pernicious to us. But it is hard, I dare to repeat it, it is hard, that being placed in a world so full of wants and necessities, where almost every being an element is either our foe or refuses its assistance, we should also have our own temper to struggle with, and should be deprived of that faculty which can alone fence against these multiplied evils. The fourth circumstance, when surrises the misery and ill of the universe, is the inaccurate workmanship of all the springs and principles of the great machine of nature. It must be acknowledged that there are a few parts of the universe which seem not to serve some purpose, and whose removal would not produce a visible defect and disorder in the whole. The parts hang altogether, nor can one be touched without affecting the rest in a greater or less degree. But at the same time, it must be observed that none of these parts or principles, however useful, are so accurately adjusted as to keep precisely within those bounds in which the utility consists. But they are all of them, apt on every occasion, to run into the one extreme or the other. One would imagine that this grand production had not received the last hand of the maker, so little finished is every part, and so coarse are the strokes with which it is executed. Thus, the winds are a requisite to convey the vapours along the surface of the globe, and to assist men in navigation. But how oft, rising up to tempests and hurricanes, do they become pernicious? Raines are necessary to nourish all the plants and animals of the earth, but how often are they defective, how often excessive? Heat is a requisite to all life and vegetation, but is not always found in the due proportion. On the mixture and secretion of the humours and juices of the body depend the health and prosperity of the animal, but the parts perform not regularly their proper function. What more useful than all the passions of the mind, ambition, vanity, love, anger, but how oft do they break their bounds and cause the greatest convulsions in society? There's nothing so advantageous in the universe, but what frequently becomes pernicious, by its excess or defect, nor has nature guarded with the requisite accuracy against all disorder or confusion. The irregularity is never perhaps so greatest to destroy any species, but is often sufficient to involve the individuals in ruin and misery. On the concurrence, then, of these four circumstances, does all or the greatest part of natural evil depend? Were all living creatures incapable of pain, or were the world administered by particular volitions, evil could never have found access into the universe, and were animals endowed with a large stock of powers and faculties beyond what strict necessity requires, or were the several springs and principles of the universe so accurately framed as to preserve always the just temperament and medium, there must have been very little ill in comparison of what we feel at present. What then shall we pronounce on this occasion? Shall we say that these circumstances are not necessary, and that they might have easily been altered in the contrivance of the universe? This decision seems too presumptuous for creatures so blind and ignorant. Let us be more modest in our conclusions. Let us allow that if the goodness of the deity, I mean a goodness like the human, could be established on any tolerable reasons a priori, these phenomena, however untoward, would not be sufficient to subvert that principle, but might easily in some unknown manner be reconcilable to it. But let us still assert that, as this goodness is not antecedently established, but must be inferred from the phenomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference while there are so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might have so easily been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on such a subject. I am sceptic enough to allow that the bad appearances, not withstanding all my reasonings, may be compatible with such attributes as you suppose, but surely they can never prove these attributes. Such a conclusion cannot result from scepticism, but must arise from the phenomena, and from our confidence in the reasonings which we deduce from these phenomena. Look round this universe. What an immense perfusion of beings, animated and organized, sensible and active. You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity, but inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator! The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind nature impregnated by a great vivifying principle and pouring forth from her lap without discernment or parental care her maimed and abortive children. Here the Manichean system occurs as a proper hypothesis to solve the difficulty, and no doubt in some respects it is very specious, and has more probability than the common hypothesis by giving a plausible account of the strange mixture of good and ill which appears in life. But if we consider, on the other hand, the perfect uniformity and agreement of the parts of the universe, we shall not discover in it any marks of the combat of a malevolent with a benevolent being. There is indeed an opposition of pains and pleasures and the feelings of sensible creatures, but are not all the operations of nature carried on by an opposition of principles, of hot and cold, moist and dry, light and heavy. The true conclusion is that the original source of all things is entirely indifferent to all these principles, and has no more regard to good above evil than to heat above cold, or to drought above moisture, or to light above heavy. There may four hypotheses be framed concerning the first causes of the universe. That they are endowed with perfect goodness, that they have perfect malice, that they are opposite and have both goodness and malice, that they have neither goodness nor malice. Mixed phenomena can never prove the two former unmixed principles, and the uniformity and steadiness of general laws seem to oppose the third. The fourth, therefore, seems by far the most probable. What I have said concerning natural evil will apply to moral, with little or no variation, and we have no more reason to infer that the rectitude of the supreme being resembles human rectitude than that his benevolence resembles the human. Nay, it will be thought that we have still greater cost to exclude from him moral sentiments, such as we feel them, since moral evil, in the opinion of many, is much more predominant above moral good than natural evil above natural good. But even though this should not be allowed, and though the virtue which is in mankind should be acknowledged much superior to the vice, yet so long as there is any vice at all in the universe, it will very much puzzle you anthropomorphites how to account for it. You must assign a cause for it without having recourse to the first cause. But as every effect must have a cause and that cause another, you must either carry on the progression in infinitum, or rest on the original principle, who is the ultimate cause of all things. Hold, hold!" cried Demia. Whither does your imagination hurry you? I joined an alliance with you in order to prove the incomprehensible nature of the Divine Being, and refute the principles of Cleanthees, who would measure everything by human rule and standard. But I now find you running into all the topics of the greatest libertines and infidels, and betraying that holy cause which you seemingly espoused. Are you secretly then a more dangerous enemy than Cleanthees himself? And are you so late in perceiving it? replied Cleanthees. Believe me, Demia, your friend Philo, from the beginning, has been amusing himself at both our expense, and it must be confessed that the injudicious reasoning of our vulgar theology has given him but too just a handle of ridicule. The total infirmity of human reason, the absolute incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature, the great and universal misery, and still greater wickedness of men. These are strange topics, surely, to be so fondly cherished by orthodox divines and doctors. In ages of stupidity and ignorance, indeed, these principles may safely be espoused, and perhaps no views of things are more proper to promote superstition, than such as encouraged the blind amazement, the diffidence, and melancholy of mankind. But at present blame not so much, interposed Philo. The ignorance of these reverent gentlemen. They know how to change their style with the times. Formerly it was thought a most popular theological topic to maintain that human life was vanity and misery, and to exaggerate all the ills and pains which are incident to men. But of late years, divines, we find, begin to retract this position, and maintain, though still of some hesitation, that there are more goods than evils, more pleasures than pains, than in this life. When religion stood entirely upon temper and education, it was thought proper to encourage melancholy, as indeed mankind never have recourse to superior powers, so readily as in that disposition. But as men have now learned to form principles, and to draw consequences, it is necessary to change the batteries, and to make use of such arguments as will endure at least some scrutiny and examination. This variation is the same, and from the same causes, without which I formerly remarked with regard to skepticism. Thus Philo continued to the last his spirit of opposition, and his censure of established opinions. But I could observe that Demia did not at all relish the latter part of the discourse, and he took occasion soon after, on some pretense or other, to leave the company. End of Part 11 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume