appear, that any is communicated from the beings of a lower world to
those of a higher.

The inquiry after the cause of natural evil is continued in the third
letter, in which, as in the former, there is mixture of borrowed truth,
and native folly, of some notions, just and trite, with others uncommon
and ridiculous.

His opinion of the value and importance of happiness is certainly just,
and I shall insert it; not that it will give any information to any
reader, but it may serve to show, how the most common notion may be
swelled in sound, and diffused in bulk, till it shall, perhaps, astonish
the author himself.

"Happiness is the only thing of real value in existence, neither riches,
nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor
virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance, but
as they contribute to its production. All these are, in themselves,
neither good nor evil: happiness alone is their great end, and they are
desirable only as they tend to promote it."

Success produces confidence. After this discovery of the value of
happiness, he proceeds, without any distrust of himself, to tell us what
has been hid from all former inquirers.

"The true solution of this important question, so long and so vainly
searched for by the philosophers of all ages and all countries, I take
to be, at last, no more than this, that these real evils proceed from
the same source as those imaginary ones of imperfection, before treated
of, namely, from that subordination, without which no created system can