§ IV.—CHAPTER V.

SPECIAL EXAMINATION CONTINUED—SOCIAL EVILS.

THE survey of human life, in its social aspects—in its aggregate character of communities and nations—presents perhaps more to perplex the contemplative mind than any other view of it. The disorders which meet us in such a survey are so numerous, and many of them of such appalling magnitude, that even the most devout have been sometimes led to ask themselves whether, after all, human history can be considered as a development of Divine wisdom and goodness. The evils of oppression, of miserable poverty, of social degradation in all its shapes, so cover with their dark shadows the historical picture, that the epical and beneficent lights of it seem often entirely obscured. And even at this better and brighter stage of the world’s progress, and in such a land as our own, where the higher social influences may be supposed working as actively at least as anywhere else, how much is there to sadden and bewilder the view! To any man in whom the faculties of heart and soul are full, who has a mind to see, and a bosom to be touched with the miseries around him, 323and upon whom has come even some dim sense of the infinite capacities and issues of all human life, it is certainly a most mournful and perplexing contemplation, that, with advancing civilisation, and such vast and ever-strengthening resources of science and art and wealth, there should remain so black and fearful a foil to the brightness,—that by the side of all this glittering increase there should harbour such dreadful sickening masses of human deterioration and suffering.

Sad as are the social evils which thus force themselves upon us, whether in the view of the past or the present, a few considerations will perhaps serve—so far as our subject is concerned—to obviate the difficulties that may be felt to arise from them.

And first of all, we must not overlook the conviction which, shaken as it may be in certain moods, never fails to return to the contemplative mind, that, under whatever appearances to the contrary, the collective life of mankind in history yet asserts itself to be “an immutable moral order, constituted by Divine wisdom.”¹⁶⁰¹⁶⁰   BUNSEN’S Hippolytus and His Age (Aphorisms), ii. 3. The assurance “that there is an eternal order in the government of the world, to which all might and power are to become, and do become, subservient; that truth, justice, wisdom, and moderation, are sure to triumph”¹⁶¹¹⁶¹   Ibid., p. 5.—this assurance, which is apt to falter while the gaze dwells on the mere imperfections of the picture, comes back with a clear force on its more intelligent survey. Divine wisdom and goodness are recognised as governing the world, and as drawing forth from all its disorders and miseries, 324hopeless as they may sometimes seem, mighty and harmonious issues of happiness. This is not a conclusion merely imported from Christian teaching, and held as a matter of faith, however Christianity may have shed illumination on it; but it is really a conclusion, upon the whole, vindicating itself upon the facts of the case, and becoming more clear as these facts develop themselves to the historical student.

But not only does the theistic inference thus assert itself even in the face of the difficulties that beset it; these difficulties are found on examination somewhat to clear away. It is felt especially, and from the very lowest point of view, that the worst of the social evils from which man has suffered in the past, or still suffers, are not in any sense to be regarded as a part of the Divine constitution of the world, but really infringements thereof, taking their rise in the invasion of that constitution by man’s impious selfishness. The misrule, and the servile and unhappy bondage of mind and body, of which so many are the victims, are felt to arise, not from the Divine appointment, but from the direct violation and contempt of it. This view, if it does not liberate us from the problem, yet throws it back here also upon that last aspect of it, whose consideration awaits us. The question comes to be one not regarding the consequent evils, fearful as they may be, but regarding the primary evil in which they originate—regarding, in short, the fact or possibility of man’s selfishness opposing itself to the Divine order. Here, as elsewhere, this becomes the ultimate and comprehensive difficulty into which the others run up, and in which they find their explanation.

It is further to be remembered, that many of the phenomena of social life, which, in their aggravated form, must be regarded as evils, are merely the negative side of that general condition upon which the whole advance, and even the very existence, of civilisation depend. The inequality of social advantage, and the consequently partial distribution of material and intellectual good, even to the extreme disproportion we observe in such a country as our own, are unquestionably, in their spring, the mere results of that inequality of endowment, without which we cannot conceive human improvement to proceed at all. Not that we would be supposed to imply that any national life is to be considered as furnishing an example of the necessary, or, in other words, divinely constituted relations of poverty and wealth. Par from it. It were, we apprehend, a poor faith that did not cherish some higher solution of the social problem than has yet been anywhere exemplified. The existing extremes of social wretchedness and social grandeur are certainly not the appointments of Divine order, but the disarrangements of human selfishness. And it is only such a faith that could sustain the philanthropist in his labour of earnestness, or his hopes of a higher future of national well-being. Yet that a certain inequality of social condition, directly springing from inequality of personal endowment, is the law of human progress, and therefore the appointment of Divine wisdom, is not to be doubted; and while we contemplate the serious evils that have taken indirectly their rise in this, we are equally bound to regard the general advancement, the vastly increasing social well-being, that, upon the whole, have flowed from 326it. Social equality—which, as the presumed security against oppression and poverty, and all the characteristic ills of civilisation, has been the lauded dream of political enthusiasts—is not only no part of the Divine constitution of the world, but we have no reason to suppose that it would fulfil the ends of “political justice” and happiness that have been attributed to it; we have every reason, indeed, to believe the contrary.¹⁶²¹⁶²   All this bearing of our subject, upon which we touch very incidentally, is discussed with fulness, and at the same time admirable clearness and calmness, in Archbishop Sunnier’s Treatise, which received one of the prizes when the subject was previously prescribed in 1814 (vol. ii. pp. 40, 118). Here, as throughout, objections which peculiarly deserved attention then, no longer need any special treatment.

Here, therefore, it will be seen that the question comes to be really one as to the wisdom and goodness shown in the general plan of such a world as ours at all,—a world whose essential character is that of development. For inequality would seem to be the condition of development; while, again, the evils we speak of are obviously contingent upon this inequality. And in this point of view, so far as we are capable in any degree of rising to it, it will perhaps be admitted that progress, with all its attendant evils, is yet a better and nobler thing than anything else we can well imagine.¹⁶³¹⁶³   It might no doubt be asked, Could we not have had the advantage of development without the disadvantage? To which we can only reply, that it was no doubt possible that human history might have been a development of good throughout; had man not sinned, we have reason to believe it would have been so; yet, in the mere fact of moral development, evil is contingent, and, consistently with the nature of that development, could not have been absolutely excluded. Here, equally as in the individual, the possibility of disorder lies in the very character of the life to be trained and developed. And here, therefore, again we see, as everywhere in this region, that the question is thrown back upon this ultimate mystery.

And while we are thus, by enlarging our view, enabled to see in many of the phenomena of social evil merely the contingent results of that general plan of progress, by which the world is upon the whole advancing in wisdom and happiness, it is still further to be considered, that beneath the aggregate darkness of some of these phenomena there is often found much individual happiness. True also, we are apt, from familiarity with such phenomena, to underrate the fearful amount of actual suffering which they represent. Yet, upon the whole, the balance lies on the other side. There is such a powerfully elastic spring of happiness in the human heart, that its presence, even in intense forms, is not to be denied under the darkest oppression and the most utter poverty. Even among those who live under systems of the cruelest and most godless injustice, there may be found circulating the free flow of exalted and joyous sentiment. In the miserable cabin of many a poor African there may be heard the voice of melody; and pure affection and simple piety may gladden many an otherwise dark and comfortless home. The soul may be emancipated while the body is enslaved, and sunshine may cheer the heart while ungrateful toil wearies the bones. Happiness, the sweetest and least interrupted on earth, may certainly belong to the lot of righteous poverty; and even in circumstances the least favourable, it is consolatory to reflect that happiness is not bound by the impious devices of tyrannic power—that it can find a nest for itself even where industrial misrule or lawless despotism may have laboured most zealously to extinguish it.

And, finally, the light of a higher explanation is beheld 328breaking upon us from the future, as, with the growth of human improvement, the “increasing purpose” of Beneficence becomes more manifestly stamped on all the civil relations of the world, and “a purer order and diviner laws” are even now beginning to bind into a nobler life its multiplied combinations. As the invasions of human selfishness are driven back before the progress of Christian enlightenment, the Divine plan of infinite wisdom and goodness will be seen more visibly revealed in history, and more obviously expressed in society.