things are double one against another, and God hath made nothing
imperfect. {15} The several passions and affections in the heart of
man, compared with the circumstances of life in which he is placed,
afford, to such as will attend to them, as certain instances of
final causes, as any whatever, which are more commonly alleged for
such: since those affections lead him to a certain determinate
course of action suitable to those circumstances; as (for instance)
compassion to relieve the distressed. And as all observations of
final causes, drawn from the principles of action in the heart of
man, compared with the condition he is placed in, serve all the good
uses which instances of final causes in the material world about us
do; and both these are equally proofs of wisdom and design in the
Author of nature: so the former serve to further good purposes;
they show us what course of life we are made for, what is our duty,
and in a peculiar manner enforce upon us the practice of it.

Suppose we are capable of happiness and of misery in degrees equally
intense and extreme, yet, we are capable of the latter for a much
longer time, beyond all comparison. We see men in the tortures of
pain for hours, days, and, excepting the short suspensions of sleep,
for months together, without intermission, to which no enjoyments of
life do, in degree and continuance, bear any sort of proportion.
And such is our make and that of the world about us that any thing
may become the instrument of pain and sorrow to us. Thus almost any
one man is capable of doing mischief to any other, though he may not
be capable of doing him good; and if he be capable of doing him some
good, he is capable of doing him more evil. And it is, in
numberless cases, much more in our power to lessen the miseries of
others than to promote their positive happiness, any otherwise than
as the former often includes the latter; ease from misery