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The individual, no longer fit to be indulged in his pretensions to personal consideration, independence, or freedom, each of which he would turn to abuse, must be taught, by external force, and from motives of fear, to counterfeit those effects of innocence, and of duty, to which he is not disposed: he must be referred to the whip, or the gibbet, for arguments in support of a caution, which the state now requires him to assume, on a supposition that he is insensible to the motives which recommend the practice of virtue.
And I, who had always counted Voltaire's Micromegas as one of my favourite tales, thought of where Sirius, the giant, voices his supposition that the people on the earth are happy beings who pass their time in love and thought, and of the philosopher's reply to him: "At this moment there are a hundred thousand animals of our species, who wear hats, engaged in killing a hundred thousand more, who wear turbans, or in being killed by them.
Morton, however, did not consider this supposition sufficient to explain the difficulty. "I should judge," said he, "that in a clear day, such an island might be seen fifteen or twenty miles, and we cannot have drifted so great a distance."
That this difficulty may not stand in the way, let us suppose the two cases positively ascertained to have no antecedent in common except A. The moment, however, that we let in the possibility of a plurality of causes, the conclusion fails. For it involves a tacit supposition, that a must have been produced in both instances by the same cause.
Beware of those who, on a slight acquaintance, make a tender of their friendship, and seem to place a confidence in you; 'tis ten to one but they deceive and betray you: however, do not rudely reject them upon such a supposition; you may be civil to them, though you do not entrust them.
According to this principle, which is so obvious and natural, it is only in two senses, that any affection can be called unreasonable. First, When a passion, such as hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security, is founded on the supposition or the existence of objects, which really do not exist.
This supposition relieves us, at once, from the difficulty in which we were left, some time ago, by the arguments which I used to demonstrate the necessity of the existence of all the great types of the Eocene epoch in some antecedent period.
The manner in which the poor creature floundered, and dipped and washed itself, for several minutes, proved my supposition correct; so, after allowing it half an hour for its recreation, I took it back, and went down with the others until they had all indulged in the luxury of a bath; and from that time, as I took them down almost every day, it was astonishing how much brighter and sleeker their plumage became.
Shall we suppose that though the evidence which already exists has come to light without aid from a body of inquirers, there would be no great increase were due attention devoted to the collection of evidence? This is, I think, not a reasonable supposition.
It might be the natural supposition, if we had only one set of species to account for, or if the successive inhabitants of the earth had no other connections or resemblances than those which adaptation to similar conditions, which final causes in the narrower sense, might explain. Darwin and his reviewer now amount to?
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