For this evil, then--this grievous and admitted evil--how shall we account? But first let us consider whether it be not unavoidable; not merely under the present dispensation, and in the existing state of things; for that is wholly irrelevant to the question which is raised upon the fitness of this very state of things; but whether it be not a necessary evil. That man might have been created immortal is not denied; but if it were the will of the Deity to form a limited being and to place him upon the earth for only a certain period of time, his death was the necessary consequence of this determination. Then as to the pain which one person’s removal inflicts upon surviving parties, this seems the equally necessary consequence of their having affections. For if any being feels love towards another, this implies his desire that the intercourse with that other should continue; or what is the same thing, the repugnance and aversion to its ceasing; that is, he must suffer affliction for that removal of the beloved object. To create sentient beings devoid of all feelings of affection was no doubt possible to Omnipotence; but to endow those beings with such feelings as would give the constant gratification derived from the benevolent affections, and yet to make them wholly indifferent to the loss of the objects of those affections, was not possible even for Omnipotence; because it was a contradiction in terms, equivalent to making a thing both exist and not exist at one and the same time. Would there have been any considerable happiness in a life stripped of these kindly affections? We cannot affirm that there would not, because we are ignorant what other enjoyments might have been substituted for the indulgence of them. But neither can we affirm that any such substitution could have been found; and it lies upon those who deny the necessary connection between the human mind, or any sentient being’s mind, and grief for the loss of friends, to show that there are other enjoyments which could furnish an equivalent to the gratification derived from the benevolent feelings. The question then reduces itself to this: Wherefore did a being, who could have made sentient beings immortal, choose to make them mortal? or, Wherefore has he placed man upon the earth for a time only? or, Wherefore has he set bounds to the powers and capacities which he has been pleased to bestow upon his creatures? And this is a question which we certainly never shall be able to solve; but a question extremely different from the one more usually put--How happens it that a good being has made a world full of misery and death?