would otherwise have made. The rules which for this purpose she prompts him to follow, are different from those which she herself observes. She bestows upon every virtue, and upon every vice, that precise reward or punishment which is best fitted to encourage the one, or to restrain the other. She is directed by this sole consi|deration, and pays little regard to the dif|ferent degrees of merit and demerit, which they may seem to possess in the sentiments and passions of man. Man, on the con|trary, pays regard to this only, and would endeavour to render the state of every vir|tue precisely proportioned to that degree of love and esteem, and of every vice to that degree of contempt and abhorrence which he himself conceives for it. The rules which she follows are fit for her, those which he follows for him: but both are calculated to promote the same great end, the order of the world, and the perfection and happiness of human nature.
But tho' man is thus employed to alter that distribution of things which natural events would make, if left to themselves; tho', like the Gods of the poets, he is per|petually interposing, by extraordinary
