The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06

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Samuel Johnson. The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Eleven Volumes, Volume 06

LETTER ON DU HALDE'S HISTORY OF CHINA, 1738

REVIEW OF THE ACCOUNT OF THE CONDUCT OF THE DUTCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 1

REVIEW OF MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF AUGUSTUS;

REVIEW OF FOUR LETTERS FROM SIR ISAAC NEWTON TO DR BENTLEY,

REVIEW OF A JOURNAL OF EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY,

REPLY TO A PAPER IN THE GAZETTEER OF MAY 26, 1757 5

REVIEW 7 OF AN ESSAY ON THE WRITINGS AND GENIUS OF POPE

REVIEW OF A FREE ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL 10

REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, FOR IMPROVING OF

REVIEW OF THE GENERAL HISTORY OP POLYBIUS,

REVIEW OF MISCELLANIES ON MORAL AND RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS,

ACCOUNT OF A BOOK ENTITLED AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ENQUIRY

MARMOR NORFOLCIENSE:

OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN 1756 20

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITICAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN

OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE,

ON THE BRAVERY OF THE ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS 25,

POLITICAL TRACTS

PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO POLITICAL TRACTS

THE FALSE ALARM. 1770

PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS ON FALKLAND'S ISLANDS

THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S ISLANDS. 1771

THE PATRIOT. 27

TAXATION NO TYRANNY;

LIVES OF EMINENT PERSONS. FATHER PAUL SARPI 30

BOERHAAVE

BLAKE

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 41

BARRETIER 42

MORIN 44

BURMAN 47

SYDENHAM 49

CHEYNEL 51

CAVE 56

KING OF PRUSSIA 60

BROWNE

ASCHAM 86

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The universal regard, which is paid by mankind to such accounts of publick transactions as have been written by those who were engaged in them, may be, with great probability, ascribed to that ardent love of truth, which nature has kindled in the breast of man, and which remains even where every other laudable passion is extinguished. We cannot but read such narratives with uncommon curiosity, because we consider the writer as indubitably possessed of the ability to give us just representations, and do not always reflect, that, very often, proportionate to the opportunities of knowing the truth, are the temptations to disguise it.

Authors of this kind have, at least, an incontestable superiority over those whose passions are the same, and whose knowledge is less. It is evident that those who write in their own defence, discover often more impartiality, and less contempt of evidence, than the advocates which faction or interest have raised in their favour.

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"God, indeed, might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in a world quite differently constituted; but then we had been no longer men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniencies."

In all this, there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of curiosity, or culm the perturbations of doubt. Whether subordination implies imperfection may be disputed. The means respecting themselves may be as perfect as the end. The weed, as a weed, is no less perfect than the oak, as an oak. That imperfection implies evil, and evil suffering, is by no means evident. Imperfection may imply privative evil, or the absence of some good, but this privation produces no suffering, but by the help of knowledge. An infant at the breast is yet an imperfect man, but there is no reason for belief, that he is unhappy by his immaturity, unless some positive pain be superadded. When this author presumes to speak of the universe, I would advise him a little to distrust his own faculties, however large and comprehensive. Many words, easily understood on common occasions, become uncertain and figurative, when applied to the works of omnipotence. Subordination, in human affairs, is well understood; but, when it is attributed to the universal system, its meaning grows less certain, like the petty distinctions of locality, which are of good use upon our own globe, but have no meaning with regard to infinite space, in which nothing is high or low. That, if man, by exaltation to a higher nature, were exempted from the evils which he now suffers, some other being must suffer them; that, if man were not man, some other being must be man, is a position arising from his established notion of the scale of being. A notion to which Pope has given some importance, by adopting it, and of which I have, therefore, endeavoured to show the uncertainty and inconsistency. This scale of being I have demonstrated to be raised by presumptuous imagination, to rest on nothing at the bottom, to lean on nothing at the top, and to have vacuities, from step to step, through which any order of being may sink into nihility without any inconvenience, so far as we can judge, to the next rank above or below it. We are, therefore, little enlightened by a writer who tells us, that any being in the state of man must suffer what man suffers, when the only question that requires to be resolved is: Why any being is in this state. Of poverty and labour he gives just and elegant representations, which yet do not remove the difficulty of the first and fundamental question, though supposing the present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to content.

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