§ IV.—CHAPTER II.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

BEFORE entering on the special examination of the difficulties before us, it may help to clear our way, and throw some light around it, to draw attention to certain general considerations bearing on the subject.

The first of these arises from the fact, already more than once insisted upon, that phenomena of evil are truly of an exceptional character: they come before us as exceptions to general order and prevailing good. While, therefore, they appear formidable difficulties when viewed by themselves, it is not yet by themselves, but as mere spots of darkness in an otherwise fair and bright picture, that they can fairly claim to be regarded. Let them be considered, in the fullest sense, obstacles in the way of the complete theistic inference—anomalies demanding explanation; they have yet no claim to set aside that inference, in virtue of their mere existence. An indefinite array of facts bears witness to the Divine wisdom and goodness with an accumulating force of evidence which is irresistible. This evidence is entitled to hold good its 299place for what it is worth, notwithstanding that there is a certain amount of what appears counter-evidence. Let both go into court, and be judged according to their respective value; but it were surely a strange injustice that the mere presence of certain phenomena appearing to form negative evidence should be held, per se, to dispose of the whole array of positive evidence. It were a strange injustice to deny that any valid inference of corresponding qualities in an artist can be founded on the general excellence, the harmonious skill, displayed by his work, because it may contain what may seem to us imperfections. And yet this is really the injustice which has been perpetrated, as with a show of superior acuteness,¹⁵⁵¹⁵⁵   “If the celebrated argument of design is to hold good as evidence in favour, it must hold equally good as evidence against the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator;—a startling proposition, and one, we believe, never made before, but one from which logic has no escape. When you point to the perfection of organisations as evidence of wisdom, and to their manifold enjoyments as evidence of goodness, you force the reflective mind to think of the imperfections and the misery so abundantly displayed. When you take your relative good for the absolute good, you must equally accept your relative evil for the absolute evil. Now this is shocking; the mind refuses to accept such a conception, and would be plunged in despair, did it not learn that Wisdom, Goodness, Evil, are but relative terms, and pertain to our human finite conditions, not to the Infinite. Yet, if men will persist in measuring the Infinite according to their finite standard, they must do so in the one case as in the other. Theologians usually escape from the dilemma by saying, when any case of manifest evil is propounded, ‘God’s ways are inscrutable;’ and they are right. But if inscrutable in one direction, inscrutable in all. We do not understand evil, nor do we understand good; the finite cannot understand the Infinite.” Leader, No. 116, July 12, 1852.
   We present this as a specimen of our most recent antitheistic logic. The passage, as it proceeds, is not without an air of speciousness, which is yet, as it appears to us, only derived from a perversion of the assumption against which it is directed. It is not true, for example, that the Theologian takes the relative good which he finds in nature as equivalent to absolute good. So far is this from being the case, that the whole question as to the theistic significance of evil only occurs from the admission that the good in nature is relative. Were it absolute, or assumed to be absolute, there would and could be no such question. The fact is, that the argument of design, according to its only right interpretation, and as abundantly evident from the whole course of our previous evidence, does not deal with the absolute in any sense at all. Its sole aim is to verify the theistic idea, as revealed in nature. It does not, therefore, affect to reach, far less to understand, the Infinite. It does profess, however, to determine comprehensively according to their full character the theistic contents given in nature; and its conclusion certainly is that wisdom and goodness are among their number. Looking with an open glance upon creation, the Theologian has the evidence of wisdom and goodness forced upon him, and by the laws of his rational constitution he cannot fail to carry up these attributes of creation to the Creator. But if you do this, says the sceptic, you are equally bound to carry up to the same source the opposite attributes of “imperfection and misery so abundantly displayed” in creation. Yes, bound to carry them up in the shape of negative presumptions—but this is all. And this is really what the Theologian does, and these negative presumptions are just the difficulties with which he has to deal. The force of these difficulties may be such as to leave the conclusion of absolute goodness uncertain on the mere sphere of nature, this conclusion being only perfected in the rational intuition of the Infinite; but it cannot surely be maintained to be such as to leave the fact of goodness in the Deity, even on this sphere, in any degree uncertain. against the inductive argument for the Divine wisdom 300and beneficence. It has been urged, for example, that the apparent imperfections of nature as much warrant a negative, as its order a positive, conclusion in reference to the Divine wisdom. This is imagined to be a peculiar hit of logic, which completely demolishes the theistic induction! Yet surely it is impossible to conceive a graver perversion of logic. For even admitting the fact of such imperfections in nature as are supposed, which may be entirely disputed, all that logic can demand is, that such phenomena shall not be rejected, and held as of no account in the theistic evidence. In fairness, they must receive a hearing before the conclusion is pronounced. The presumptions of an opposite character which they involve must be weighed; but that certain apparent anomalies here and there, which, the more they are 301examined, the less they are seen to be anomalies, must be allowed to set aside the otherwise uniform testimony of nature, is too absurdly illogical a pretension to deserve even the notice we have given it.

Even so as to those more serious aspects of misery which exist in human life. The very utmost that can be demanded is, that they be recognised as difficulties in the way of the complete theistic inference. It is certainly puzzling that the works of a good Being should be in any respect marred by unhappiness. Yet the partial unhappiness cannot for a moment be entitled to set aside the prevailing happiness. On any fair principle of evidence, we must admit the good for what it truly is—the rule of nature; and the evil for what it no less truly is—only the exception. In this, as it appears to us, the whole question at this stage is summed up, and we willingly leave the sceptic on either horn of the dilemma he may choose; namely, either to deny that happiness is the rule of creation (a denial from which his philosophic insouciance would especially shrink), or to admit pro tanto the validity of the inference founded upon the rule, and to join us in the search of whatever explanation the exceptions may admit of.

And this leads us to the only other preliminary consideration which seems to demand attention. In reviewing the phenomena of creation, we are to bear in mind that we only see part of a great plan in progress. We cannot, in the nature of the case, see more. But if we could see the whole plan in its extended development, many things that now seem to us exceptional and contradictory might lose this 302character altogether, and even expand into special means of advance in the ever-enlarging display of the Divine beneficence. The mystery which everywhere encompasses our finite sphere of observation, may only conceal from us the wisdom and the goodness that are really present in many phenomena where we cannot even trace them. The limitation of our faculties is thus recognised as in some manner explanatory of the difficulties that meet us in regard to our subject; and it is quite validly so held in a general sense. It has been urged, indeed, in the same hostile spirit of reasoning, already noticed, that if the limitation of our faculties is to be called into account so far, it must be admitted much farther. It ought truly to deter us from pronouncing any theistic judgment at all as to creation—an assertion which is really tantamount to saying that we ought to reject a fact because we are not able to perceive all the relations of that fact. We are not to admit that God is good, because we cannot understand the whole nature and bearing of His goodness. “We are to refuse to believe what we see and know, because there are certain things we do not see and cannot know. The finite cannot understand the infinite; therefore it must pause in mere dumb perplexity, and not say anything, nor believe anything. Reason instinctively recoils from such an assertion. It at once rejects such a mere syllogistic cavil. With a higher and truer logic, it accepts the good, although it may not comprehend all its modes of operation. Looking out from the veil which covers its limited vision, it perceives and acknowledges the lustre of beneficence all around it, and it only pauses where shadows seem to cover 303that lustre. We do not deny the light of the sun because shadows here and there intercept that light: nay, there are spots, we know, in the very solar brightness itself; but this does not prevent us day by day, as we pass into its presence, confessing the lustre of beauty and happiness that it sheds about our path.

We rightly allow, therefore, the theistic inference on its positive side, while we pause before those negative facts that force themselves upon us. We validly pause in the one case, and not in the other, on the broad ground that, in the one case, the immediate conclusion is correspondent to our rational instincts, and in the other it is repellent to those instincts. Truly speaking, it is only in the latter case that the region of ignorance and mystery begins. It is only the evil that is utterly unintelligible. It is only in reference to the evil that the limitation of our faculties is displayed in absolute helplessness. Rightly, therefore, on every principle of reason, we call in this limitation of our faculties as demanding a suspense of judgment in regard to the evil, and not in regard to the good. In the one case reason is satisfied: it rests in the good, as sympathetic with it, and intelligible to it. From the evil, on the contrary, it retreats, as utterly perplexing; and we say, in such a case, with a justice which commends itself to every heart, that if we knew more—if our faculties were more competent—we might understand what is now so dark. If our vision were enlarged, we might perceive that what seems so anomalous and evil is not really so. For we are but the creatures of a day; and those darkened characters which our feeble sight 304cannot read, may yet, to a higher sight, be luminous with Divine light. The mystery which we cannot explain, may disappear on a wider horizon of knowledge. Could we see the end from the beginning, it may be best as it is, after all. The complications which now yield us no meaning, or one at which we only gaze with awe, may expand into issues of beneficence that will gladden the angels, when the great scheme is complete, and the glory of final victory is poured backwards through all its darkened perplexities and most deeply-lying shadows.