no beings, but of the highest and most perfect order, than it would be
of a painter's art to cover his whole piece with one single colour, the
most beautiful he could compose. Had he confined himself to such,
nothing could have existed but demi-gods, or archangels, and, then, all
inferior orders must have been void and uninhabited; but as it is,
surely, more agreeable to infinite benevolence, that all these should be
filled up with beings capable of enjoying happiness themselves, and
contributing to that of others, they must, necessarily, be filled with
inferior beings; that is, with such as are less perfect, but from whose
existence, notwithstanding that less perfection, more felicity, upon the
whole, accrues to the universe, than if no such had been created. It is,
moreover, highly probable, that there is such a connexion between all
ranks and orders, by subordinate degrees, that they mutually support
each other's existence, and every one, in its place, is absolutely
necessary towards sustaining the whole vast and magnificent fabric.

"Our pretences for complaint could be of this only, that we are not so
high in the scale of existence as our ignorant ambition may desire; a
pretence which must eternally subsist, because, were we ever so much
higher, there would be still room for infinite power to exalt us; and,
since no link in the chain can be broke, the same reason for disquiet
must remain to those who succeed to that chasm, which must be occasioned
by our preferment. A man can have no reason to repine, that he is not an
angel; nor a horse, that he is not a man; much less, that, in their
several stations, they possess not the faculties of another; for this
would be an insufferable misfortune."

This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of
existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always
left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty.