The Eclipse of Faith Part 12

"I am supposing that we have the right as well as the power; as, for example, to prevent a man from murdering his neighbor, or a thief from entering his dwelling. There are, no doubt, many acts which, from our very limited right, we should have no business to prevent; as, for example, to prevent a man from getting tipsy at his own table with his own wine. But no such limitation can apply to Him who is supposed to be the Absolute Monarch of the universe; and yet He (according to your view) notoriously does not interpose to prevent the daily commission of the most heinous wrongs and cruelties under which the earth has groaned, and hearts have been breaking, for thousands of years. You will say, perhaps, that in all such instances we must believe that there are some reasons for His conduct, though we cannot guess what they are. Ah! my friend, if you come to believing, you may believe also that the difficulties involved in the Scriptural representations of the Divine character and proceedings are susceptible of a similar solution. If you come to believing, I think the Christian can believe as well as you, and rather more consistently. But let me proceed." He then read on.

It is plain, that, in accordance with our primitive "moral intuitions"

(if we have any), we should hold him who had the power to prevent a wrong, and did not use it, as a partic.i.p.ator and accomplice in the crime he did not prevent. Applying, therefore, the principles of Mr. Newman, I must refuse to acknowledge such conduct on the part of the Divine Being, and to say, that such things are not done by him.

If I may trust my whisper of him, derived from a.n.a.logous moral qualities in myself, I must believe that an administration which so ruthlessly permits these things is not his work; but that his power, wisdom, and goodness have been thwarted, baffled, and overmastered by some "omnipotent devil," to use Mr. Newman's expression; if it be, then that whisper of him cannot be trusted: the heathen was right, "Sunt superis sua jura." In other words, I feel that I must become an Atheist, a Pantheist, a Manichaean, or--what I am--a sceptic.

All these perplexities are increased when I trace them up to that profound mystery in which they all originate,--I mean the permission of physical and moral evil. Either evil could have been prevented or not; if it could, its immense and horrible prevalence is at war with the intuition already referred to; if it could not, who shall prove it?

I am no more able to contradict the intuitions of the intellect than those of the conscience; and if any thing can be called a contradiction of the former, it is to be told that a Being of infinite power, wisdom, and beneficence could not construct a world without an immensity of evil in it; no reason being a.s.signable or even imaginable for such a proposition, except the fact that such a world has not been created!

I am therefore compelled to doubt, whether such a universe be really the fabrication of such a Being. It is impossible to express my astonishment at the ease with which Mr. Newman disposes of the difficulties connected with the origin and perpetuation of physical and moral evil. His arguments are just two of the most hackneyed commonplaces with which metaphysicians have attempted to evade these stupendous difficulties; and it is not too much to say, that there never was a man who was not resolved that his theory must stand, who pretended to attach any importance to them. They are most gratuitously a.s.sumed, and even then are most trivial alleviations; a mere plaster of brown paper for a deep-seated cancer.

I certainly know of no other man who has stood so unabashed in front of these awful forms. One almost envies him the truly childlike faith with which he waves his hand to these Alps, and says, "Be ye removed, and east into the sea"; but the feeling is exchanged for another, when he seems to rub his eyes, and exclaim, "Presto, they are gone sure enough!" while you still feel that you stand far within the circ.u.mference of their awful shadows.

As to physical evil, Mr. Newman tells us, "Here may be sufficient to remark, that the difficulty on the Epicurean a.s.sumption, that physical case and comfort is the most valuable thing in the universe: but that is not true even with brutes. There is a certain perfection in the nature of each, consisting in the full development of all their powers, to which the existing order manifestly tends ...... As for susceptibility to pain, it is obviously essential to every part of corporeal life, and to discuss the question of degree is absurd. On the other hand, human capacity for sorrow is equally necessary to our whole moral nature, and sorrow itself is a most essential process for the perfecting of the soul." (Soul, pp. 43, 44.)

This, then, is the fine balm for all the anguish under which the world has been groaning for these thousands of years! But, first, how does suffering tend to the perfection of the whole lower creation?

It enfeebles, and at last destroys them, I know; but I am yet to Learn that it is essential to the perfection of animal life.

Again, how does it minister to that of man, except he be more than the insect of the day, of which Mr. Newman's theology leaves him in utter doubt? And if he be immortal, how does it operate beneficially except as an instrument of moral improvement? And how rarely (comparatively) do we see that it has that effect! How often is it most prolonged and torturing in those who seem least to need it, and in those who are absolutely as yet incapable of learning from it; or, alas! are too evidently past learning from it! How often do we see, slowly sinking under the protracted agonies of consumption, cancer, or stone, all these various cla.s.ses of mortals, without our being able to a.s.sign, or even conjecture, the slightest reason for such experiments! I acknowledge freely, all, at we can give no reasons for them; but it is to mock miserable humanity to give such reasons as these; doubly to mock it, if men be the ephemeral creatures which Mr. Newman's theology leaves in such doubt: since in that case we see not only (what we see at any rate) that physical evil does not always, nor even in many instances, produce a salutary moral effect, but that it hardly matters whether it does or not; for just as the poor patient may be beginning to be benefited by his discipline, and generally in consequence of it, he is unluckily annihilated; he dies of his medicine! Surely, if physical evil be this grand elixir, never was such a precious balm so improvidently expended. We may well say, only with much more reason, what the Jews said of Mary's box of ointment,--"Why was all this waste?" To be sure it is "given" in abundance "to the poor."

And, at the best, this exquisite reasoning gives no account whatever of that suffering which falls upon innocent infancy and childhood. It destroys them, however, and effectually prevents their attaining the "perfection" which it is so admirable an instrument of developing, and that too before they can be morally benefited by the "salutary" sorrow it brings!

"Susceptibility to pain," says Mr. Newman, "is essential to corporeal being."

Yes, susceptibility to pain; just as a created being must be liable to annihilation. Must he be annihilated? Just as a hungry stomach must be liable to starvation. Must it be starved? The primary office of susceptibilities to pain would seem to be to forewarn us to provide against it. They certainly have that effect. Does it necessarily follow that they must involve anguish and death? Unless it be supposed, indeed, that nature, having provided such an admirable apparatus of "susceptibilities" of pain, thought it a thousand pities that they should not be employed.

But when it comes to "moral evil," which Mr. Newman acknowledges cannot be so lightly disposed of, what then?

Why, then he says, "Let the Gordian knot be cut."

Well, what then? Why, then Mr. Newman frankly "a.s.sumes" that it is "transitory and finite," (Soul, p. 45.) and will one day vanish from the universe, a supposition for which he condescends to give no reason whatever.

Stat pro ratione voluntas.

That this "moral evil" should have existed at all, much more to so immense an extent, under the administration of supposed infinite power, wisdom, and benevolence, is the great difficulty; that it will ever cease to be, is a pure a.s.sumption for the nonce; but if it will one day entirely vanish, it is gratuitous to suppose it might not have been prevented.

I, of course, acknowledge that we can give no answer to the questions involved in this transcendent mystery,--that our ignorance is absolute; but I do say, that, if I am to trust to those "intuitions" of the Divine Goodness, on whose warranty Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker reject the Bible, as containing what is unworthy of their conceptions of G.o.d, I am compelled to proceed further in the same direction; and repudiate, as unworthy of Him, not merely some of the phenomena of the Book which men profess to be His word, but also some of the phenomena of that universe which men profess to be His work. If I can only judge, as these gentlemen urge, of such a Being by the a.n.a.logies of my own nature, no "intuition" of theirs can possibly seem stronger than do mine, that beings absolutely innocent ought not to suffer; that to inflict suffering upon them is injustice; that to permit any evils which we can prevent is in like manner to be accomplices in the crime. On those very principles of all moral judgment which Mr. Newman says are innate and our only rule, I say I am compelled to these conclusions; for if G.o.d does those things which are ordinarily attributed to Him, He acts as much in contravention of these intuitions as in any acts attributed to Him in the Bible. If it be said, that there may be reasons for such apparent violations of rect.i.tude, which we cannot fathom, I deny it not: but that is to acknowledge that the supposed maxims derived from the a.n.a.logies of our own being are most deceptive as applied to the Supreme; it is to remit us to an act of absolute faith, by which, with no greater effort, nor so great, we may be reconciled to similar mysteries of the Bible.

But above all is it to do this, to say that the origin and permission of physical and moral evil are inexplicable; and it is to double this demand on faith, to declare that it was all necessary, and could not be evaded in the construction of the universe even by infinite power, directed by infinite wisdom, and both animated by an infinite benevolence!

As far as I can trust my reason at all, nothing seems more improbable; and if I receive it by a transcendent exercise of faith, I may, as before, give the Bible the benefit of a like act. I am compelled, therefore, on such principles, either to adopt a Manichaean hypothesis of the universe, or do what I have done,--adopt none at all.

I was talking to a friend on these subjects the other day: "Ah! but,"

said he, "many of those difficulties you mention oppress every hypothesis,--Christianity just as much as the rest."

This, I replied, is no answer to me nor to you, if you have a particle of candor; still less is it one to the Christian, who consistently applies the same principle of absolute faith to things apparently a priori incredible, whether found in the works or in the word of G.o.d. But if you think the argument of any force, apply it to the next Christian you meet, and see what answer he will make to you; it will not trouble him. But it is far more ridiculous addressed to me.

I ask for something in the place of that Bible of which the faithful application of your own principles deprives me; and when I affirm that the difficulties of the universe are no less than those of the Bible I have surrendered, you tell me that the perplexities of my new position are no greater than those of the old! That clearly will not do. I must go further. If I am to yield to pretensions of any kind, I would infinitely prefer the yoke of the Bible to that of Messrs. Parker and Newman; for it is to nothing else than their dogmatism I must yield, if I admit that the difficulties which compel me to doubt in the one case are less than those which compel me to doubt in the other.

But it is not even true that the difficulties in question are left where they were by the adoption of any such theory as that of either Mr. Parker or Mr. Newman. I contend that they are all indefinitely increased. The Bible does at least give me a plausible account of some of the mysteries which baffle me: it tells me that man was created holy and happy; that he has fallen from his "excellent estate"; and hence the misery, ignorance, and guilt in which he is involved, and which have rendered revelation necessary.

But--and it brings me to the last step of my argument--if I accept the theory of the universe propounded by these writers, not only am I left without any such approximate solutions, or, if that be thought too strong a term, without any such alleviations, but all the difficulties as regards the character, attributes, and administration of G.o.d, are increased a thousand-fold. The Scripture account of the "fall,"--however inexplicable it may be that G.o.d should have permitted it,--yet does expressly a.s.sert that, somehow or other, it is man's fault, not G.o.d's; that man is not in his normal condition, nor in the condition for which he was created. Dark as are the clouds which envelop the Divine Ruler, "their skirts are tinged with gold,"--pervaded and penetrated throughout their dusky depths by that mercy which a.s.sures us that, in some intelligible sense, this condition of man is contrary to the Divine Will, which, from the first, resolved to remedy it; and that a day is coming when what is mysterious shall be explained,--so far, at least, that what has been "wrong" shall be "righted." But what is the theory of the universe propounded by these writers? So hideous (I solemnly declare it) that I feel ten times more compelled to reject the universe as a work of an infinitely gracious, wise, and powerful Creator, than if the difficulties had been simply left where the Bible leaves them. According to their theory, man is now, just what he was at first,--as he came from his Creator's hand; or rather in some parts of the world (thanks to himself though) a little better than he was originally; that G.o.d cast man forth, so const.i.tuted by the unhappy mal-admixture of the elements of his nature,--with such an inevitable subjection of the "idea" to the "conception," of the "spiritual faculty" to "the degraded types,"--that for unnumbered ages--for aught we know, myriads of ages--man has been slowly crawling up, a very sloth in "progress" (poor beast!), from the lowest Fetichism to Polytheism,--from Polytheism, in all its infinitude of degrading forms, to imperfect forms of Monotheism; and how small a portion of the race have even imperfectly reached this last term, let the spectacle of the world's religions at the present moment proclaim!

From the more imperfect forms of Monotheism, the race is gradually to make "progress" to something else,--Heaven knows what! but certainly something still far below the horizon,--still concealed in the illimitable future. For this gradual transformation from the veriest religions grub into the spiritual Psyche, man was expressly equipped by the const.i.tution of his nature,--he was created this grub. For all this truly geological spiritualism, and for all the infinitude of hideous superst.i.tions and cruel wrongs involved in the course of this precious development, Mr. Parker tells us there was a necessity,--nothing less! It was necessary, no doubt for his logic, that he should say so; but, apart from his own argumentative exigencies, it is impossible even to imagine any necessity whatever. It was an "ordeal," it seems, through which man was obliged to pa.s.s. What is all this, but to acknowledge the unaccountable nature of the problem?

With this "religious" theory admirably coincides the hypothesis of man's having been originally created a savage, from which he was gradually exalted to the lowest stages of civilization,--a theory which I thought had (in mere shame) been abandoned to some few Deists of the last century, or the commencement of this. It is true that these writers do not expressly indorse it; but it is easy to see that they favor it; and it is most certain that it alone is consistent with their parallel theory of man's "religious development" from the vilest Fetichism to (shall we say?) a mythical Christianity; though even to that very few have yet arrived. According to this theory, the Great Father--supposed a being of infinite power, wisdom, and Goodness--threw his miserable offering on the face of the earth, with an admirable "absolute religion," no doubt, and an "admirable spiritual faculty," but the "idea" so inevitably subject to thwarting "conceptions," and the "spiritual faculty" so perpetually debauched by "awe and reverence," and the whole rabble of emotions and affections with which it was to keep company,--in fact, with the elements of his nature originally so ill poised and compounded, --that everywhere and for unnumbered ages man has been doomed and necessitated, and for unnumbered ages will be doomed and necessitated, to wallow in the most hideous, degrading, cruel forms of superst.i.tion, --inflicting and suffering reciprocally all the dreadful evils and wrongs which are entailed by them. For this man was created; such a thing he was,--through this "ordeal" he pa.s.ses,--by original destination. If this be the picture of the Father of All, he is less kind to his off-spring than the most intimate "intuitions" teach them to be to theirs. The voice of nature teaches them not to expose their children; the Universal Father, according to this theory, remorselessly exposed his! Such a G.o.d, projected by the "spiritual faculties" of Mr. Newman and Mr. Parker, may be imagined to be a more worthy object of worship than the "G.o.d of the Bible": he shall never receive mine. If I am to abjure the Bible because it gives me unworthy conceptions of the Deity, I must, with more reason, abjure, on similar grounds, such a detestable theory of man's creation, destination, and history.

As to that "progress" which is promised for the future, it is like the necessity for the past, purely an invention of Mr. Parker; if I receive it, I must receive it simply as matter of prophecy. If the necessity has continued so long, then, for aught I know, it may continue for ever; the evil is all too certain,--the bright futurity is still a futurity. But if it ever became a reality, it would not neutralize one of the dark imputations which such a theory of the original destination and creation of man casts on the Divine character; not to say, that, if Mr. Newman's doubts of man's immortality be well founded, that better future will be of no more avail to the myriads of our race who have suffered under the long iron regime of necessity, than a reprieve to the wretch who was executed yesterday!

I told Harrington I must have a copy of the paper he had just read.

I should like, with his leave, to publish it.

"O, and welcome," said he. "Only remember that its tendency is to show that there is no tenable resting place between a revealed religion and none at all; between the Bible and scepticism. If you make men sceptics,--mind, it is not my fault."

"I will take the risk," said I. "I wish the controversy to be brought to the issue you have mentioned. I know there will never be many sceptics, any more than there will be many atheists; and if men are convinced that the Via Media is as hard to find as you suppose,--or as that between Romanism and Protestantism,--they will take refuge in the BIBLE. And if it be the BOOK OF G.o.d indeed, this is the issue to which the great controversy will and ought to come. But how is it you were not tempted to become an atheist rather than a sceptic?"

"Why," said he, with a smile, "the great master of the Modern Academy had fortified me against that. Hume, you know, confesses that, if men be discovered without any impression of a Deity,--genuine atheists,--we may a.s.sume that they will be found the most degraded of the species, and only one remove above the brutes. Now I have no wish to be set down in that category."

"Very different." said I, "is the account our modern atheists give of themselves: they are contending that the banishment of G.o.d from the universe, by one or other of the various theories of Atheism or Pantheism (which I take to be the same thing, with different names), is the tendency of all modern science? and that when that science is perfect, G.o.d will be no more."

"My dear uncle," replied Harrington, "you are insufficiently informed in the mystery of modern theology. There are no atheists, properly speaking; they who are so called merely deny any personal, conscious, intelligent sovereign of the universe. Even those who call themselves so, and will have it that they are so, are told that they are none. I myself have perused statements of some of our modern 'spiritualists,'

who know every thing, even other people's consciousness quite as well as their own (and perhaps better), that the said atheists are mistaken in thinking themselves such; that such genuine love of the spirit of universal nature is something truly divine, and that they are animated by 'a deeply religious spirit,' though they never suspected it!"

"Well," said I. "if you had too much reason, as you flattered yourself (adopting Hume's criterion), to become an atheist, could you not have adopted such views as those of Mr. G. Atkinson and Miss Martineau, who both possess surely (as they claim to possess) that 'religious reverence'

of nature of which you have just spoken?"

"Why," he replied, "I am afraid that, if I had too much reason for the one, I have not faith enough for the other. That the miracles and prophecies of the Bible may possibly have been true,--only the effect of mesmerism;--that things quite as wonderful, or more so, happen every day by this wonderful agent;--that every phenomenon that takes place does so in virtue a perfectly wise LAW, without any wise LAWGIVER;--that this wise law has, it seems, prearranged that man should generally exhibit an inveterate tendency to religious systems of some kind, though all religions are absurd, and persist in believing in his free will, though free from a downright impossibility;--that these contradictions and absurdities of man are the result of an irreversible necessity, and yet that Mr. Atkinson may hope to correct them;--that, by the same necessity, man is in no degree culpable or responsible, and yet that Mr. Atkinson may perpetually blame him; --that no man can do any thing 'wrong,' and yet that till he believes that, man will never cease to do it;--that people may read without their eyes, and distinguish colors as colors though they are born blind;--that Bacon was an atheist, and that this may be proved by induction from his own writings;--these and other paradoxes, which I must believe, if I believe Mr. Atkinson, require a faith which it would really be unreasonable to expect from such a sceptic as I am."

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July 18. Till three days ago, nothing since my last date has occurred having any special relation to the sole object of this journal. I was glad to escape on the 13th to a quiet church some miles off; and, after a plain and simple, but earnest, sermon from a venerable clergyman (of whom I should like to know a little more), I further refreshed my spirit by a long and solitary ramble of some hours through the beautiful scenery in the midst of which Harrington's dwelling is situated. In the course of it, I reviewed my own early conflicts, and augured from them happier days for my beloved nephew. I went carefully over all the main points of the argument for and against the truth of Christianity, which in youth had so often occupied me, and resolved that on some fair opportunity I would recount my story to him and Mr. Fellowes. I little thought then that I should have a larger and very miscellaneous audience to listen to me. But this will account for my not being to seek (as they say) when the occasion presented itself.

Three days ago (the 16th) a queer company a.s.sembled in Harrington's quiet house. The conversations and incidents connected with that day have led me to take refuge for the last two mornings in the solitude of my own chamber, that I might, undisturbed, recall and record them with as much accuracy and fulness as possible. Very much, indeed, that I wished to remember has vanished; but the substance of what too many said, as well as what I said myself made too deep an impression to be easily obliterated.

Be it known to you, my dear brother, that I have been not a little amused, I may even say instructed, by a trick played by your madcap nephew, for the honor and glory, I suppose, of his scepticism, or for some other motive, not easily divined. He promised me significantly an entertainment, in which I should enjoy the "feast of reason and the flow of soul," by which I little thought that he was going to collect a rare party of "Rationalists" and "Spiritualists," in fact, representatives of all the more prominent forms, whether of belief or unbelief. I may as well call it the

SCEPTIC'S SELECT PARTY.

You remember, I doubt not, the humorous paper in the Spectator, in which Addison introduces the whimsical n.o.bleman who used to invite to his table parties of men (strangers to one another) all characterized by some similar personal defect or infirmity. On one occasion, twelve wooden-legged men found stumping into his dining-room, one after another, making, of course, a terrible clatter; on another, twelve guests, who all had the misfortune to squint, amused their host with their ludicrous cross lights; and on a third, the same number of stutterers entertained him still more, not only by their uncouth impediment, but by the anger with which they began to sputter at one another, on the supposition that each was mocking his neighbor.

A short-hand writer, behind the scenes, was employed to take down the conversation, which, says the witty essayist, was easily done, inasmuch as one of the gentlemen was a quarter of an hour in saying "that the ducks and green peas were very good," and another almost an equal time in a.s.senting to it. At the conclusion, however, the derided guests became aware of the trick their entertainer had played upon them; and from their hands, quicker than their tongues, he was obliged to make a precipitate retreat. Our dinner-party of yesterday did not break up in any such fracas, nor was the conversation so unhappily restricted. Yet the company was hardly better a.s.sorted. To bring it together, Harrington ransacked his immediate circle, and Fellowes unconsciously recruited for him in the university town. Our host had provided for our mutual edification an Italian gentleman, with whom he had had some pleasant intercourse on the Continent, (by the way he spoke English uncommonly well,) and now staying with a Roman Catholic in the neighborhood: this gentleman himself, with whom Harrington, by means of his former friend, has knocked up an acquaintance (he is a liberal Catholic of the true British species); our acquaintance, Fellowes, with his love of "insight" and "spiritualism"! a young surgeon from ----., a rare, perhaps unique, specimen of conversion to certain crude atheistical speculations of Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau; a young Englishman (an acquaintance of Harrington's) just fresh from Germany, after sundry semesters at Bonn and Tubingen, five hundred fathoms deep in German philosophy, and who hardly came once to the surface during the whole entertainment; three Rationalists (acquaintances of Fellowes), standing at somewhat different points in the spiritual thermometer, one a devoted advocate of Strauss: add to these a Deist, no unworthy representative of the old English school; one or two others further gone still; a Roman Catholic priest, an admirer of Father Newman, who therefore believes every thing; our sceptical friend Harrington, who believes nothing; and myself, still fool enough to believe the Bible to be "divine,"

--and you will acknowledge that a more curious party never sat down to edify one another with their absurdities and contradictions.

Questionable as was the entertainment for the mind, that for the body was unexceptionable. The dinner was excellent; our host performed his duties with admirable tact and grace; and somehow speedily put every body at his ease. Relieved, according to the judicious modern mode, of the care of supplying the plates of his guests, he had eye, ear, and tongue for every one, and leisure to direct the conversation into what channel he pleased. He took care to turn it for some time on indifferent topics; and each man lost his reserve and his frigidity almost before he was aware; so that, by the time dinner was fairly over, every one was ready for animated conversation. If any one began to have queer suspicions of his neighbors, he felt, as on board ship, that he was in for it, and bound, by common politeness, to make the best of it. The Deist, addressing himself to the Italian gentleman, asked him if he had heard lately from Italy. He replied in the negative.

"I can tell you some news, then," said he. "They say that the head of the ill.u.s.trious Guicciardini family has been just imprisoned at Florence, having been detected reading in Diodati's Bible a chapter in the Gospel of St. John. Supposing the fact true, for a moment, may I ask if it would be the wish of the Roman Catholic Church, were she to regain her power in England, to imprison every one who was found reading a chapter in John? If so, England would have to enlarge her prisons."

"Not much," said one of the Rationalist gentlemen, laughing; "for if things go on as they have done, there will not, in a few years, be many who will be found reading a chapter in John."

"Perhaps so," said Harrington, smiling, "but, if for the reason you would a.s.sign, few will be found in church either; and the ecclesiastical authorities might perhaps put you in prison for that instead."

"O, I will answer for him!" said the Deist, who knew something of his plasticity; "our friend is very accommodating, and though he would not like to go to go to church, he would still less like to go to prison. And to church he would go; and look very devout into the bargain. But, however, I should like to hear what your Italian guest has to say to my question."

The impatience of the English Catholic could not be repressed.