The Fallen Star, or, the History of a False Religion Part 10

But, again, while we are ignorant of this, perhaps the most sublime truth in all science, we were always arguing as if the system had an imperfection, as if the disturbing forces of the different planets and the sun, acting on one another, constantly changed the orbits of each planet, and must, in a course of ages, work the destruction of the whole planetary arrangement which we had contemplated with so great admiration and with awe. It was deemed enough if we could show that this derangement must be extremely slow, and that, therefore, the system might last for many more ages without requiring any interposition of omnipotent skill to preserve it by rectifying its motions. Thus one of the most celebrated writers above cited argues that, "from the nature of gravitation and the concentricity of the orbits, the irregularities produced are so slowly operated in contracting, dilating and inclining those orbits, that the system may go on for many thousand years before any extraordinary interference becomes necessary in order to correct it." And Dr. Burnett adds, that "those small irregularities cast no discredit on the good contrivance of the whole." Nothing, however, could cast greater discredit if it were as he supposed, and as all men previous to the late discoveries supposed; it was only, they rather think, a "small irregularity," which was every hour tending to the destruction of the whole system, and which must have deranged or confounded its whole structure long before it destroyed it. Yet now we see that the wisdom, to which a thousand years are as one day, not satisfied with constructing a fabric which might last for "many thousand years without His interference," has so formed it that it may thus endure forever.

Now if such be the grounds of our belief in the universal prevalence of Design, and such the different lights which at different periods of our progress in science we possess upon this branch of the divine government; if we undoubtingly believe that contrivance is universal only because we can trace and comprehend it in a great majority of instances, and if the number of exceptions to the rule is occasionally diminished as our knowledge of the particulars is from time to time extended--may we not apply the same principle to the apprehension of Benevolent purpose, and infer from the number of instances in which we plainly perceive a good intention, that if we were better acquainted with those cases in which a contrary intention is now apparent, we should there, too, find the generally pervading character of Benevolence to prevail? Not only is this the manner in which we reason respecting the Design of the Creator from examining his works; it is the manner in which we treat the conduct of our fellow-creatures. A man of the most extensive benevolence and strictest integrity in his general deportment has done something equivocal; nay, something apparently harsh and cruel; we are slow to condemn him; we give him credit for acting with a good motive and for a righteous purpose; we rest satisfied that "if we only knew everything he would come out blameless." This arises from a just and a sound view of human character, and its general consistency with itself. The same reasoning may surely be applied with all humility and reverence, to the works and the intentions of the great Being who has implanted in our minds the principles which lead to that just and sound view of the deeds and motives of men.

But let the argument be rested upon our course of reasoning respecting divine contrivance. The existence of Evil is in no case more apparent than the existence of Disorder seems to be in many things. To go no further than the last example which has been given--the mathematician could perceive the derangement in the planetary orbits, could demonstrate that it must ensue from the mutual action of the heavenly bodies on each other, could calculate its progress with the utmost exactness, could tell with all nicety how much it would alter the forms of the orbits in a given time, could foresee the time when the whole system must be irretrievably destroyed by its operation as a mathematical certainty. Nothing, that we call evil can be much more certainly perceived than this derangement, of itself an evil, certainly a great imperfection, if the system was observed by the mind of man as we regard human works. Yet we now find, from well considering some things which had escaped attention, that the system is absolutely free from derangement; that all the disturbances counterbalance each other; and that the orbits never can either be flattened or bulged out beyond a definite or very inconsiderable quant.i.ty. Can any one doubt that there is also a reason for even the small and limited, this regular and temporary derangement? Why it exists at all, or in any the least degree, we as yet know not. But who will presume to doubt that it has a reason which would at once satisfy our minds were it known to us? Nay, who will affirm that the discovery of it may not yet be in reserve for some later and happier age? Then are we not ent.i.tled to apply the same reasoning to what at present appears Evil in a system of which, after all we know of it, so much still remains concealed from our view?

The mere act of creation in a Being of wisdom so admirable and power so vast, seems to make it extremely probable that perfect goodness accompanies the exertion of his perfect skill. There is something so repugnant to all our feelings, but also to all the conceptions of our reason, in the supposition of such a Being desiring the misery, for its own sake, of the Beings whom he voluntarily called into existence and endowed with a sentient nature, that the mind naturally and irresistibly recoils from such a thought. But this is not all. If the nature of that great Being were evil, his power being unbounded, there would be some proportion between the amounts of ills and the monuments of that power.

Yet we are struck dumb with the immensity of His works to which no imperfection can be ascribed, and in which no evil can be traced, while the amount of mischief that we see might sink into a most insignificant s.p.a.ce; and is such as a being of inconsiderable power and very limited skill could easily have accomplished. This is not the same consideration with the balance of good against evil; and inquirers do not seem to have sufficiently attended to it. The argument, however, deserves much attention, for it is purely and strictly inductive. The divine nature is shown to be clothed with prodigious power and incomparable wisdom and skill,--power and skill so vast and so exceeding our comprehension that we ordinarily term them infinite, and are only inclined to conceive the possibility of limiting, by the course of the argument upon evil, one alternative of which is a.s.sumed to raise an exception. But admitting on account of the question under discussion, that we have only a right to say that power and skill are prodigiously great, though possibly not boundless, they are plainly shown in the phenomena of the universe to be the attributes of a Being, who, if evil-disposed, could have made the monuments of Ill upon a scale resembling those of Power and Skill; so that if those things which seem to us evil be really the result of a mischievous design in such a Being, we cannot comprehend why they are upon so entirely different a scale. This is a strong presumption from the facts that we are wrong in imputing those appearances to such a disposition. If so, what seems evil must needs be capable of some other explanation consistent with divine goodness--that is to say, would not prove to be evil at all if we knew the whole of those facts.

But it is necessary to proceed a step further, especially with a view to the fundamental position now contended for, the extending to the question of Benevolence the same principles which we apply to that of Intelligence. The evil which exists, or that which we suppose to be evil, not only is of a kind and a magnitude requiring inconceivably less power and less skill than the admitted good of the creation--it also bears a very small proportion in amount; quite as small a proportion as the cases of unknown or undiscoverable design bear to those of acknowledged and proved contrivance. Generally speaking, the preservation and the happiness of sensitive creatures appears to be the great object of creative exertion and conservative providence. The expanding of our faculties, both bodily and mentally, is accompanied with pleasure; the exercise of those powers is almost always attended with gratification; all labor so acts as to make rest peculiarly delicious; much of labor is enjoyment; the gratification of those appet.i.tes by which both the individual is preserved and the race is continued, is highly pleasurable to all animals; and it must be observed that instead of being attracted by grateful sensations to do anything requisite for our good or even our existence, we might have been just as certainly urged by the feeling of pain, or the dread of it, which is a kind of suffering in itself. Nature, then, resembles the law-giver who, to make his subjects obey, should prefer holding out rewards for compliance with his commands rather than denounce punishments for disobedience. But nature is yet more kind; she is gratuitously kind; she not only prefers inducement to threat or compulsion, but she adds more gratification than was necessary to make us obey her calls. How well might all creation have existed and been continued, though the air had not been balmy in spring, or the shade and the spring refres.h.i.+ng in summer; had the earth not been enamelled with flowers; and the air scented with perfumes! How needless for the propagation of plants was it that the seed should be enveloped in fruits the most savory to our palate, and if those fruits serve some other purpose, how foreign to that purpose was the formation of our nerves so framed as to be soothed or excited by their flavor! We here perceive design, because we trace adaptation. But we at the same time perceive benevolent design, because we perceive gratuitous and supererogatory enjoyment bestowed. Thus, too, see the care with which animals of all kinds are tended from their birth. The mother's instinct is not more certainly the means of securing and providing for her young, than her gratification in the act of maternal care is great and is also needless for making her perform that duty. The grove is not made vocal during pairing and incubation, in order to secure the laying or the hatching of eggs; for if it were as still as the grave, or were filled with the most discordant croaking, the process would be as well performed. So, too, mark the care with which injuries are remedied by what has been correctly called the _vis medicatrix_. Is a muscle injured?--Suppuration takes place, the process of granulation succeeds, and new flesh is formed to supply the gap, or if that is less wide, a more simple healing process knits together the severed parts. Is a bone injured?--A process commences by which an extraordinary secretion of bony matter takes place, and the void is supplied. Nay, the irreparable injury of a joint gives rise to the formation of a new hinge, by which the same functions may be not inconveniently, though less perfectly, performed. Thus, too, recovery of vigor after sickness is provided for by increased appet.i.te; but there is here superadded, generally, a feeling of comfort and lightness, an enjoyment of existence so delightful, that it is a common remark how nearly this compensates the sufferings of the illness. In the economy of the mind it is the same thing. All our exertions are stimulated by curiosity, and the gratification is extreme of satisfying it. But it might have been otherwise ordered, and some painful feeling might have been made the only stimulant to the acquisition of knowledge. So, the charm of novelty is proverbial; but it might have been the unceasing cause of the most painful alarms. Habit renders every thing easy; but the repet.i.tion might have only increased the annoyance. The loss of one organ makes the others more acute. But the partial injury might have caused, as it were, a general paralysis. 'Tis thus that Paley is well justified in exclaiming, "It is a happy world after all!" The pains and the sufferings, bodily and mental, to which we are exposed, if they do not sink into nothing, at least retreat within comparatively narrow bounds; the ills are hardly seen when we survey the great and splendid picture of worldly enjoyment or ease.

But the existence of considerable misery is undeniable: and the question is, of course, confined to that. Its exaggeration, in the ordinary estimate both of the vulgar and of skeptical reasoners, is equally certain. Paley, Bishop Sumner, as well as Derham, King, Ray and others of the older writers, have made many judicious and generally correct observations upon its amount, and they, as well as some of the able and learned authors of the _Bridgwater Treatises_, have done much in establis.h.i.+ng deductions necessary to be made, in order that we may arrive at the true amount. That many things, apparently unmixed evils, when examined more narrowly, prove to be partially beneficial, is the fair result of their well-meant labors; and this, although anything rather than a proof that there is no evil at all, yet is valuable as still further proving the a.n.a.logy between this branch of the argument and that upon design; and in giving hopes that all may possibly be found hereafter to be good, as everything will a.s.suredly be found to be contrived with an intelligent and useful purpose. It may be right to add a remark or two upon some evils, and those of the greatest magnitude in the common estimate of human happiness, with a view of further ill.u.s.trating this part of the subject.

Mere imperfection must altogether be deducted from the account. It never can be contended that any evil nature can be ascribed to the first cause, merely for not having endowed sentient creatures with greater power or wisdom, for not having increased and multiplied the sources of enjoyment, or for not having made those pleasures which we have more exquisitely grateful. No one can be so foolish as to argue that the Deity is either limited in power, or deficient in goodness, because he has chosen to create some beings of a less perfect order than others.

The mere negation in the creating of some, indeed of many, nay, of any conceivable number of desirable attributes, is therefore no proper evidence of evil design or of limited power in the Creator--it is no proof of the existence of evil properly so called. But does not this also erase death from the catalogue of ills? It might well please the Deity to create a mortal being which, consisting of soul and body, was only to live upon this earth for a limited number of years. If, when that time has expired, this being is removed to another and a superior state of existence, no evil whatever accrues to it from the change; and all views of the government of this world lead to the important and consolitary conclusion, that such is the design of the Creator; that he cannot have bestowed on us minds capable of such expansion and culture only to be extinguished when they have reached their highest pitch of improvement; or if this be considered as begging the question by a.s.suming benevolent design, we cannot easily conceive that while the mind's force is so little affected by the body's decay, the destruction or dissolution of the latter should be the extinction of the former. But that death operates as an evil of the very highest kind in two ways is obvious; the dread of it often embitters life, and the death of friends brings to the mind by far its most painful infliction; certainly the greatest suffering it can undergo without any criminal consciousness of its own.

For this evil, then--this grievous and admitted evil--how shall we account? But first let us consider whether it be not unavoidable; not merely under the present dispensation, and in the existing state of things; for that is wholly irrelevant to the question which is raised upon the fitness of this very state of things; but whether it be not a necessary evil. That man might have been created immortal is not denied; but if it were the will of the Deity to form a limited being and to place him upon the earth for only a certain period of time, his death was the necessary consequence of this determination. Then as to the pain which one person's removal inflicts upon surviving parties, this seems the equally necessary consequence of their having affections. For if any being feels love towards another, this implies his desire that the intercourse with that other should continue; or what is the same thing, the repugnance and aversion to its ceasing; that is, he must suffer affliction for that removal of the beloved object. To create sentient beings devoid of all feelings of affection was no doubt possible to Omnipotence; but to endow those beings with such feelings as would give the constant gratification derived from the benevolent affections, and yet to make them wholly indifferent to the loss of the objects of those affections, was not possible even for Omnipotence; because it was a contradiction in terms, equivalent to making a thing both exist and not exist at one and the same time. Would there have been any considerable happiness in a life stripped of these kindly affections? We cannot affirm that there would not, because we are ignorant what other enjoyments might have been subst.i.tuted for the indulgence of them. But neither can we affirm that any such subst.i.tution could have been found; and it lies upon those who deny the necessary connection between the human mind, or any sentient being's mind, and grief for the loss of friends, to show that there are other enjoyments which could furnish an equivalent to the gratification derived from the benevolent feelings.

The question then reduces itself to this: Wherefore did a being, who could have made sentient beings immortal, choose to make them mortal?

or, Wherefore has he placed man upon the earth for a time only? or, Wherefore has he set bounds to the powers and capacities which he has been pleased to bestow upon his creatures? And this is a question which we certainly never shall be able to solve; but a question extremely different from the one more usually put--How happens it that a good being has made a world full of misery and death?

In the necessary ignorance wherein we are of the whole designs of the Deity, we cannot wonder if some things, nay, if many things, are to our faculties inscrutable. But we a.s.suredly have no right to say that those difficulties which try and vex us are incapable of a solution, any more than we have to say, that those cases in which as yet we can see no trace of design, are not equally the result of intelligence, and equally conducive to a fixed and useful purpose with those in which we have been able to perceive the whole, or nearly the whole scheme. Great as have been our achievements in physical astronomy, we are as yet wholly unable to understand why a power pervades the system acting inversely as the squares of the distance from the point to which it attracts, rather than a power acting according to any other law; and why it has been the pleasure of the almighty Architect of that universe, that the orbits of the planets should be nearly circular instead of approaching to, or being exactly the same with many other trajectories of a nearly similar form, though of other properties; nay, instead of being curves of a wholly different cla.s.s and shape. Yet we never doubt that there was a reason for this choice; nay, we fancy it possible that even on earth we may hereafter understand it more clearly than we now do: and never question that in another state of being we may be permitted to enjoy the contemplation of it. Why should we doubt that, at least in that higher state, we may also be enabled to perceive such an arrangement as shall make evil wholly disappear from our present system, by showing that it was necessary and inevitable, even in the works of the Deity; or, which is the same thing, that its existence conduces to such a degree of perfection and happiness upon, the whole, as could not, even by Omnipotence, be attained without it; or, which is the same thing, that the whole creation as it exists, taking both worlds together, is perfect, and incapable of being in any particular changed without being made worse and less perfect? Taking both worlds together--For certainly were our views limited to the present sublunary state, we may well affirm that no solution whatever could even be imagined of the difficulty--if we are never again to live; if those we here loved are forever lost to us; if our faculties can receive no further expansion; if our mental powers are only trained and improved to be extinguished at their acme--then indeed are we reduced to the melancholy and gloomy dilemma of the Epicureans; and evil is confessed to checker, nay, almost to cloud over our whole lot, without the possibility of comprehending why, or of reconciling its existence with the supposition of a providence at once powerful and good. But this inference is also an additional argument for a future state, when we couple it with these other conclusions respecting the economy of the world to which we are led by wholly different routes, when we investigate the phenomena around us and within us.

Suppose, for example, it should be found that there are certain purposes which can in no way whatever--no conceivable way--be answered except by placing man in a state of trial or probation; suppose the essential nature of mind shall be found to be such that it could not in any way whatever exist so as to be capable of the greatest purity and improvement--in other words, the highest perfection--without having undergone a probation; or suppose it should be found impossible to communicate certain enjoyments to rational and sentient beings without having previously subjected them to certain trials and certain sufferings--as, for instance, the pleasures derived from a consciousness of perfect security, the certainty that we can suffer and perish no more--this surely is a possible supposition. Now, to continue the last example--Whatever pleasure there is in the contrast between ease and previous vexation or pain, whatever enjoyment we derive from the feeling of absolute security after the vexation and uncertainty of a precarious state, implies a previous suffering--a previous state of precarious enjoyment; and not only implies it but necessarily implies it, so that the power of Omnipotence itself could not convey to us the enjoyment without having given us the previous suffering. Then is it not possible that the object of an all powerful and perfectly benevolent being should be to create like beings, to whom as entire happiness, as complete and perfect enjoyment, should be given as any created beings--that is, any being, except the Creator himself--can by possibility enjoy? This is certainly not only a very possible supposition, but it appears to be quite consistent with, if it be not a necessary consequence of, his being perfectly good as well as powerful and wise. Now we have shown, therefore, that such being supposed the design of Providence, even Omnipotence itself could not accomplish this design, as far as one great and important cla.s.s of enjoyments is concerned, without the previous existence of some pain, some misery. Whatever gratification arises from relief--from contrast--from security succeeding anxiety--from restoration of lost affections--from renewing severed connections--and many others of a like kind, could not by any possibility be enjoyed unless the correlative suffering had first been undergone. Nor will the argument be at all impeached by observing, that one Being may be made to feel the pleasure of ease and security by seeing others subjected to suffering and distress; for that a.s.sumes the infliction of misery on those others; it is "_alterius_ spectare laborem" that we are supposing to be sweet; and this is still partial evil.

As the whole argument respecting evil must, from the nature of the question, resolve itself into either a proof of some absolute or mathematical necessity not to be removed by infinite power, or the showing that some such proof may be possible although we have not yet discovered it, an ill.u.s.tration may naturally be expected to be attainable from mathematical considerations. Thus, we have already adverted to the law of periodical irregularities in the solar system.

Any one before it was discovered seemed ent.i.tled to expatiate upon the operation of the disturbing forces arising from mutual attraction, and to charge the system arranged upon the principle of universal gravitation with want of skill, nay, with leading to inevitable mischief--mischief or evil of so prodigious an extent as to exceed incalculably all the instances of evil and of suffering which we see around us in this single planet. Nevertheless, what then appeared so clearly to be a defect and an evil, is now well known to be the very absolute perfection of the whole heavenly architecture.

Again, we may derive a similar ill.u.s.tration from a much more limited instance, but one immediately connected with strict mathematical reasoning, and founded altogether in the nature of necessary truth. The problem has been solved by mathematicians, Sir Isaac Newton having first investigated it, of finding the form of a symmetrical solid, or solid of revolution, which in moving through a fluid shall experience the least possible resistance. The figure bears a striking resemblance to that of a fish. Now suppose a fish were formed exactly in this shape, and that some animal endowed with reason were placed upon a portion of its surface, and able to trace its form for only a limited extent, say at the narrow part, where the broad portion or end of the moving body were opposed, or seemed as if it were opposed, to the surrounding fluid when the fish moved--the reasoner would at once conclude that the contrivance of the fish's form was very inconvenient, and that nothing could be much worse adapted for expeditious or easy movement through the waters.

Yet it is certain that upon being afterwards permitted to view THE WHOLE body of the fish, what had seemed a defect and an evil, not only would appear plainly to be none at all, but it would appear manifest that this seeming evil or defect was a part of the most perfect and excellent structure which it was possible even for Omnipotence and Omniscience to have adopted, and that no other conceivable arrangement could by possibility have produced so much advantage, or tended so much to fulfill the design in view. Previous to being enlightened by such an enlarged view of the whole facts, it would thus be a rash and unphilosophical thing in the reasoner whose existence we are supposing to p.r.o.nounce an unfavorable opinion. Still more unwise would it be if numerous other observations had evinced traces of skill and goodness in the fish's structure. The true and the safe conclusion would be to suspend an opinion which could only be unsatisfactorily formed upon imperfect data; and to rest in the humble hope and belief that one day all would appear for the best.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The "light of revelation," as well as the "light of the Christian religion," has not dispelled the darkness of ignorance. The torch of reason is a surer guide.--_Pub._]

[Footnote 2: The human race has from time immemorial been afflicted with so-called revelations, all claiming inspiration, all conflicting, and all being equally "mysterious and obscure." The wars arising among these sectarians have r.e.t.a.r.ded civilization, and deluged the earth in blood.

The revelations of science, founded upon reason and demonstration, have proved the only safe and beneficent guide.--_Pub._]

[Footnote 3: While it is true that the argument of Design, here given, places the subject one step in advance, it is still unsatisfactory, because it fails to explain to us who designed the designer, and the mystery of creation still remains unsolved.

"What think you of an uncaused cause of everything?" is the pertinent question which Bishop Watson, in his _Apology for the Bible_, asked, and vainly asked, of the celebrated deist, Thomas Paine.--_Pub._]