therefore to applaud this answer for the same reason. It is true he
seems to have discovered one incongruity in the reasoning of Helvetius.
The words he imputes to him are, "that nature has no object, because
nature acts necessarily; man has an object; yet man also acts
necessarily." In the same way nature might have an object though it
acted necessarily. But Helvetius adds, that the object which man has is
a necessary object. The best defence of Helvetius (not in behalf of
that passage, but of his general system) is to let him speak at large
for himself; and the following quotation Dr. Priestley and the reader
may accept as a specimen of the strength and justice of his argument,
and as the conclusion of this answer.

"Theologians tell us, that the disorder and evil, which is seen in the
world, is not absolute and real, but relatively and apparently such,
and does not disprove the divine wisdom and goodness. But may not one
reply, that the goodness and wonderful order which they so much extol,
and on which they found their notions of those qualities in God, are in
a similar way only relative and apparent. If it be only our co-existence
with the causes which surround us, and our manner of perceiving them,
that constitute the order of nature for us, and authorise us to attribute
wisdom and goodness to the maker of what surround us, should not also
our mode of existence and perception authorise us to call what is
hurtful to us disorder, and to attribute impotence, ignorance, or
malice, to that Being which we would suppose to actuate nature.

Some pretend that the supremely wise God can derive goodness and
happiness to us from the midst of those ills which he permits us to
undergo in this world. Are these men privy counsellors of the Divinity,
or on what do they found their romantic hopes? They will doubtless say,
that they judge of God's conduct by analogy, and that from the present
appearance of his wisdom and goodness, they have a right to infer his
future wisdom and goodness. But do not the present appearances of his
want of wisdom or goodness justify us in concluding, that he will
always want them? If they are so often manifestly deficient in this
world, what can assure us that they will abound more in the next? This
kind of language therefore rests upon no other basis than a prejudiced
imagination, and signifies, that some men, having without examination,
adopted an opinion that God is good, cannot admit that he will