Note 42 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
"Nor are we therefore authorised to infer à priori, independent of Revelation, a future state of retribution, from the irregularities prevailing in the present life, since that future state does not account fully for these irregularities. It may explain, indeed, how present evil may be conducive to future good, but not why the good could not be attained without the evil; it may reconcile with our notions of the divine justice the present prosperity of the wicked, but it does not account for the existence of the wicked."—Whately, l.c. pp. 69, 70.