the highest imperfection
imaginable." Besides, the regular gradations of the scale of being
required, somewhere, "such a creature as man, with all his infirmities
about him; and the total removal of those would be altering his nature,
and, when he became perfect, he must cease to be man."

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