It is quite plain, therefore, that King has assumed the thing to be proved in his first argument, or argument _a priori_. For he proceeds upon the postulates that the Deity is infinitely good, and that he only had human happiness in view when he made the world. Either supposition would have served his purpose; and making either would have been taking for granted the whole matter in dispute. But he has assumed both; and it must be added, he has made his assumption of both as if he was only laying down a single position. This part of the work is certainly more slovenly than the rest. It is the third section of the first chapter. It is certainly not from any reluctance to admit the existence of evil that the learned author and his able commentator have been led into this inconclusive course of reasoning. We shall nowhere find more striking expositions of the state of things in this respect, nor more gloomy descriptions of our condition, than in their celebrated work. “Whence so many, inaccuracies,” says the Archbishop, “in the work of a most good and powerful God? Whence that perpetual war between the very elements, between animals, between men? Whence errors, miseries and vices, the constant companions of human life from its infancy? Whence good to evil men, evil to the good? If we behold anything irregular in the work of men, if any machine serves not the end it was made for, if we find something in it repugnant to itself or others, we attribute that to the ignorance, impatience or malice of the workman. But since these qualities have no place in God, how come they to have place in anything? Or why does God suffer his works to be deformed by them?”--Chap. ii. s. 3. Bishop Law, in his admirable preface, still more cogently puts the case: “When I inquire how I got into the world, and came to be what I am, I am told that an absolutely perfect being produced me out of nothing, and placed me here on purpose to communicate some part of his happiness to me, and to make me in some manner like himself. This end is not obtained--the direct contrary appears--I find myself surrounded with nothing but perplexity, want and misery--by whose fault I know not--how to better myself I cannot tell. What notions of good and goodness can this afford me? What ideas of religion? What hopes of a future state? For if God’s aim in producing me be entirely unknown, if it be either his glory (as some will have it), which my present state is far from advancing, nor mine own good, which the same is equally inconsistent with, how know I what I have to do here, or indeed in what manner I must endeavor to please him? Or why should I endeavor it at all? For if I must be miserable in this world, what security have I that I shall not be so in another too (if there be one), since if it were the will of my Almighty Creator, I might (for aught I see) have been happy in both.”--Pref. viii. The question thus is stated. The difficulty is