I have already spent some considerations on the scale of being, of which, yet, I am obliged to renew the mention, whenever a new argument is made to rest upon it; and I must, therefore, again remark, that consequences cannot have greater certainty than the postulate from which they are drawn, and that no system can be more hypothetical than this, and, perhaps, no hypothesis more absurd.

He again deceives himself with respect to the perfection with which man is held to be originally vested.  “That man came perfect, that is, endued with all possible perfection, out of the hands of his creator, is a false notion derived from the philosophers.—­The universal system required subordination, and, consequently, comparative imperfection.”  That man was ever endued with all possible perfection, that is, with all perfection, of which the idea is not contradictory, or destructive of itself, is, undoubtedly, false.  But it can hardly be called a false notion, because no man ever thought it, nor can it be derived from the philosophers; for, without pretending to guess what philosophers he may mean, it is very safe to affirm, that no philosopher ever said it.  Of those who now maintain that man was once perfect, who may very easily be found, let the author inquire, whether man was ever omniscient, whether he was ever omnipotent; whether he ever had even the lower power of archangels or angels.  Their answers will soon inform him, that the supposed perfection of man was not absolute, but respective; that he was perfect, in a sense consistent enough with subordination, perfect, not as compared with different beings, but with himself in his present degeneracy; not perfect, as an angel, but perfect, as man.

From this perfection, whatever it was, he thinks it necessary that man should be debarred, because pain is necessary to the good of the universe; and the pain of one order of beings extending its salutary influence to innumerable orders above and below, it was necessary that man should suffer; but, because it is not suitable to justice, that pain should be inflicted on innocence, it was necessary that man should be criminal.

This is given as a satisfactory account of the original of moral evil, which amounts only to this, that God created beings, whose guilt he foreknew, in order that he might have proper objects of pain, because the pain of part is, no man knows how or why, necessary to the felicity of the whole.

The perfection which man once had, may be so easily conceived, that, without any unusual strain of imagination, we can figure its revival.  All the duties to God or man, that are neglected, we may fancy performed; all the crimes, that are committed, we may conceive forborne.  Man will then be restored to his moral perfections; and into what head can it enter, that, by this change, the universal system would be shaken, or the condition of any order of beings altered for the worse?