Section VI. The true and only foundation of optimism. Though few have been satisfied with the details of the system of optimism, yet has the great fundamental conception of that system been received by the wise and good in all ages. “The atheist takes it for granted,” says Cudworth, “that whosoever asserts a God, or a perfect mind, to be the original of all things, does therefore _ipso facto_ suppose all things to be well made, and as they should be. And this, doubtless, was the sense of all the ancient theologers,” &c.(146) This distinguished philosopher himself maintains, as well as Leibnitz, that the intellectual world could not have been made better than it is, even by a being of infinite power and goodness. “To believe a God,” says he, “is to believe the existence of all _possible_ good and perfection in the universe; it is to believe that things are as they should be, and that the world is so well framed and governed, as that the whole system thereof could not possibly have been better.”(147) But while this fundamental principle has been held by philosophers, both ancient and modern, it has been, as we have seen, connected with other doctrines, by which it is contradicted, and its influence impaired. The concession which is universally made to the sceptic, that if God is omnipotent, he can easily cause virtue to exist without any mixture of vice, is fatal to the great principle that lies at the foundation of optimism. It resolves the whole scheme, which regards the world as the best that could possibly be made, into a loose, vague, and untenable hypothesis. It is true, the good man would infinitely prefer this hypothesis to the intolerable gloom of atheism; but yet our rational nature demands something more solid and clear on which to repose. Indeed, the warmest supporters of optimism have supplied us with the lofty sentiments of a pure faith, rather than with substantial and satisfactory views. The writings of Plato, Leibnitz, Cudworth, and Edwards, all furnish illustrations of the justness of this remark. But nowhere is its truth more clearly seen than in the following passage from Plotinus: “God made the _whole_ most beautiful, entire, complete, and sufficient,” says he; “all agreeing friendly with itself and its parts; both the nobler and the meaner of them being alike congruous thereunto. Whosoever, therefore, from the parts thereof, will blame the whole, is an absurd and unjust censurer. For we ought to consider the parts not alone by themselves, but in reference to the whole, whether they be harmonious and agreeable to the same; otherwise we shall not blame the universe, but some of its parts taken by themselves.”(148)