Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/231

 in that manner. I am sure now, whilst I am speaking, I feel such pains in my head, and such disorders all over me, as is a sufficient proof that there was no wisdom concerned in the forming us. It is true, indeed, that I have sat up whole nights, and drank very hard lately; but if a good being, who really loved his creatures, had been the cause of our coming into this world, undoubtedly we should have been made in such a manner that we should neither have had temptations, nor power to injure ourselves. The whole thing appears to me absurd; for, notwithstanding all our boasting of superior reason to the rest of the creation, in my opinion we are such low grovelling creatures, that I can easily conceive we were made by chance. It is certainly the clergy's interest to endeavour to govern us; but I am resolved I will never be priest-rid, whatever other folly I give in to." In this style he went on a great while; and when he thought it time to conclude, that is, when the spirit of the liquor he had drunk was evaporated, he stared the clergyman full in the face, with a resolution, as he saw he was a modest man, that if he could not get the better of him by his arguments, he would put him out of countenance by his impudence. The butterfly, who had been silent, and hearkened with the utmost attention while the other was speaking, now began to open his mouth; he was full as irreligious as the atheist, although the cause of it was very different; for as the latter, from a natural propensity to vice, and a resolution to suffer all the consequences of it rather than deny himself anything he liked, drove all serious thoughts as much as possible from his mind, and endeavoured to make use of all the fallacies he could think on to impose on his understanding; so the former, who was naturally disposed to lead a regular life, and whose inclinations prompted him to nothing