The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences Part 12

A volcano is an opening made in the earth's crust by internal heat, which has forced melted or heated matter through the vent. An earthquake is the effect of the confined gases and vapors, produced by the heat upon the crust. When the volcano, therefore, gets vent, the earthquake always ceases. But the latter has generally been more destructive of life and property than the former. Where one city has been destroyed by lava, like Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabi, twenty have been shaken down by the rocking and heaving of earthquakes. The records of ancient as well as modern times abound with examples of these tremendous catastrophes.

Preminent on the list is the city of Antioch. Imagine the inhabitants of that great city, crowded with strangers on a festival occasion, suddenly arrested on a calm day, by the earth heaving and rocking beneath their feet; and in a few moments two hundred and fifty thousand of them are buried by falling houses, or the earth opening and swallowing them up.

Such was the scene which that city presented in the year 526; and several times before and since that period has the like calamity fallen upon it; and twenty, forty, and sixty thousand of its inhabitants have been destroyed at each time. In the year 17 after Christ, no less than thirteen cities of Asia Minor were in like manner overwhelmed in a single night.

Think of the terrible destruction that came upon Lisbon in 1755. The sun had just dissipated the fog in a warm, calm morning, when suddenly the subterranean thundering and heaving began; and in six minutes the city was a heap of ruins, and sixty thousand of the inhabitants were numbered among the dead. Hundreds had crowded upon a new quay surrounded by vessels. In a moment the earth opened beneath them, and the wharf, the vessels, and the crowd went down into its bosom; the gulf closed, the sea rolled over the spot, and no vestige of wharf, vessels, or man ever floated to the surface. How thrilling is the account left us by Kircher, who was near, of the destruction of Euphemia, in Calabria, a city of about five thousand inhabitants, in the year 1638! "After some time," says he, "the violent paroxysm of the earthquake ceasing, I stood up, and, turning my eyes to look for Euphemia, saw only a frightful black cloud. We waited till it had pa.s.sed away, when nothing but a dismal and putrid lake was to be seen where the city once stood." In like manner did Port Royal, in the West Indies, sink beneath the waters, with nearly all its inhabitants, in less than one minute, in the year 1692.

Still more awful, though usually less destructive, is often the scene presented by a volcanic eruption. Imagine yourselves, for instance, upon one of the wide, elevated plains of Mexico, far from the fear of volcanoes. The earth begins to quake under your feet, and the most alarming subterranean noises admonish you of a mighty power within the earth that must soon have vent. You flee to the surrounding mountains in time to look back and see ten square miles of the plain swell up, like a bladder, to the height of five hundred feet, while numerous smaller cones rise from the surface still higher, and emit smoke; and in their midst, six mountains are thrown up to the height, some of them at least, of sixteen hundred feet, and pour forth melted lava, turning rivers out of their course, and spreading terrific desolation over a late fertile plain, and forever excluding its former inhabitants. Such was the eruption, by which Jorullo, in Mexico, was suddenly thrown up, in 1759.

Still more terrific have been some of the eruptions in Iceland. In 1783, earthquakes of tremendous power shook the whole island, and flames burst forth from the ocean. In June these ceased, and Skaptar Jokul opened its mouth; nor did it close till it had poured forth two streams of lava, one sixty miles long, twelve miles broad, and the other forty miles long, and seven broad, and both with an average thickness of one hundred feet.

During that summer the inhabitants saw the sun no more, and all Europe was covered with a haze.

Around the Papandayang, one of the loftiest mountains in Java, no less than forty villages were reposing in peace. But in August, 1772, a remarkable luminous cloud enveloping its top aroused them from their security. But it was too late. For at once the mountain began to sink into the earth, and soon it had disappeared with the forty villages, and most of the inhabitants, over a s.p.a.ce fifteen miles long and six broad.

Still more extraordinary--the most remarkable on record--was an eruption in Sumbawa, one of the Molucca Islands, in 1815. It began on the fifth day of April, and did not cease till July. The explosions were heard in one direction nine hundred and seventy miles, and in another seven hundred and twenty miles. So heavy was the fall of ashes at the distance of forty miles that houses were crushed and destroyed. The floating cinders in the ocean, hundreds of miles distant, were two feet thick, and vessels were forced through them with difficulty. The darkness in Java, three hundred miles distant, was deeper than the blackest night; and finally, out of the twelve thousand inhabitants of the island, only twenty-six survived the catastrophe.

Now, if we confine our views to such facts as these, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that earthquakes and volcanoes are terrific exhibitions of G.o.d's displeasure towards a fallen and guilty world. But if it can be shown that the volcanic agency exerts a salutary influence in preserving the globe from ruin, nay, is essential to such preservation, we must regard its incidental destruction of property and life as no evidence of a vindictive infliction, nor of the want of benevolence in its operation.

And the remarkable proofs which modern geology has presented of vast acc.u.mulations of heated and melted matter beneath the earth's crust, do make such an agent as volcanoes essential to the preservation of the globe. In order to make out this position, I shall not contend that all the earth's interior, beneath fifty or one hundred miles, is in a state of fusion. For even the most able and decided of those geologists who object to such an inference, admit that oceans of melted matter do exist beneath the surface. And if so, how liable would vast acc.u.mulations of heat be, if there were no safety-valves through the crust, to rend asunder even a whole continent? Volcanoes are those safety-valves, and more than two hundred of them are scattered over the earth's surface, forming vent-holes into the heated interior. Most of them, indeed, have the valves loaded, and the effort of the confined gases and vapors to lift the load produces the terrific phenomena of earthquakes and volcanoes. But if no such pa.s.sages into the interior existed, what could prevent the pent-up gases from acc.u.mulating till they had gained strength enough to rend a whole continent, and perhaps the whole globe, into fragments? Is it not, then, benevolence by which this agency prevents so dreadful a catastrophe, even by means that bring some incidental evils along with them?

Some able writers do, indeed, object to the idea that volcanoes are safety-valves to the globe, deriving their objections from certain facts respecting the position of volcanic craters in the Sandwich Islands, if I do not misrecollect. Without going into the details of that case, for want of time and s.p.a.ce, it seems to me that the facts respecting the connection between earthquakes and volcanoes, admitted by all, will justify such a view of the latter as is expressed by the term "safety-valves." For earthquakes are but the incipient effects of the volcanic force within the globe; and if these effects have been so terrible at the beginning, what must be the full exhibition of that force, if not able to find a pa.s.sage for the struggling gases and lava through the strata above them? Who can say that it might not rend a continent asunder, and, if deep enough seated, even the whole globe?

The question will undoubtedly be asked by every reflecting mind, why infinite wisdom and benevolence could not have devised a plan for securing the good resulting from volcanoes and earthquakes without the attendant evils. The same question meets us at almost every step of our examination of the present system of the world. For we every where meet with evil, incidentally connected with agencies whose predominant effects are beneficial. I incline to the opinion, that the true answer to this question is, that the evil is permitted that thereby greater good may be secured to the universe. Still the subject of the origin of evil is one whose full solution can hardly be expected in the present world, because we cannot here master all its elements. When it can be solved, we can tell why so much desolation and suffering are permitted to accompany the earthquake and the volcano. But if we can show that benefits far outweighing the evil are the result of this terrific agency, we gather from it decided evidence of the divine benevolence;--the same evidence which we gain from any other operations of nature; for in them all there is only a preponderance of good, not unmixed good. The desolation of this fair world by volcanic agency, and especially the destruction of life, do, indeed, teach us that this present system of nature is adapted to a state of probation and death, instead of a state of rewards and immortal life.

It is adapted to sinful and fallen beings, rather than to those who are perfect in holiness and in happiness. In short, it is earth, not heaven.

It is not such a world as heaven must be, to secure unalloyed and eternal happiness. Nevertheless, benevolence decidedly predominates in the arrangements of the present system, even in the desolating agency under consideration. I do not deny that G.o.d may sometimes employ this agency, as he may every other in nature, for the punishment of the guilty. But before we infer that this is the general use and design of volcanoes and earthquakes, we should ponder well the questions put by our Savior _to some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices_. _Suppose ye_, answered the Savior, _that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you nay. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you nay._ Let us follow the example of Jesus Christ, and take a more enlarged view of these startling and distressing events. Let us inquire whether they are not the incidental effects of agencies essential to the permanence and happiness of the great system of the universe. This is certainly the case in regard to volcanoes. We have strong reason to believe that they are essential to the preservation of the globe; and of how much higher consequence is this than the comparatively small amount of property and life which they destroy! If we can only rise to these higher views, and not suffer our judgment to be warped by the immediate terrors of the earthquake and the volcano, we shall see the smile of infinite benevolence where most men see only the wrath of an offended Deity.

_My seventh geological argument for the divine benevolence is derived from the manner in which coal, rock salt, marble, gypsum, and other valuable materials were prepared for the use of man, long before his existence._

If a created and intelligent being from some other sphere had alighted on this globe during that remote period when the vegetation now dug out of the coal formation covered the surface with its gigantic growth, he might have felt as if here was a waste of creative power. Vast forests of sigillaria, lepidodendra, conifer, cycade, and tree ferns would have waved over his head, with their imposing though sombre foliage, while the lesser tribes of calamites and equisetace would have filled the intervening s.p.a.ces; but no vertebral animal would have been there to enjoy and enliven the almost universal solitude. Why, then, he must have inquired, is there such a profusion of vegetable forms, and such a colossal development of individual plants? To what use can such vast forests be applied? But let ages roll by, and that same being revisit our world at the present time. Let him traverse the little Island of Britain, and see there fifteen thousand steam engines moved by coal dug out of the earth, and produced by these same ancient forests. Let him see these engines performing the work of two millions of men, and moving machinery which accomplishes what would require the unaided labors of three or four hundred millions of men, and he could not doubt but such a result was one of the objects of that rank vegetation which covered the earth ere it was fit for the residence of such natures as now dwell upon it. Let him go to the coal fields of other countries, and especially those of the United States, stretching over one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, containing a quant.i.ty absolutely inexhaustible, and already imparting comfort to millions of the inhabitants, and giving life and energy to every variety of manufacture through the almost entire length of this country, and destined to pour out their wealth through all coming time, long after the forests shall all have been levelled,--and irresistible must be the conviction upon his mind, that here is a beautiful example of prospective benevolence on the part of the Deity. In those remote ages, while yet the earth was unfitted for the higher races of animals that now dwell upon it, it was eminently adapted to nourish that gigantic flora which would produce the future fuel of the human race, when that crown of all G.o.d's works should be placed upon the earth. Ere that time, those forests must sink beneath the ocean, be buried beneath deposits of rock thousands of feet thick. But during all that period, all those chemical changes which are essential to convert them into coal would be accomplished, and, at last, man would find access, by his ingenuity and industry, to the deep-seated beds whence his fuel might be drawn. Nor would these vast repositories fail him till the consummation of all things. Surely there was no waste, but there was a far-reaching plan of benevolence in the profusion of vegetable life in the earlier periods of our planet.

Essentially the same remark will apply to the limestone, gypsum, rock salt, and several other mineral products of the earth, which are almost indispensable to man in a civilized state. For these, too, were produced by slow processes, during those vast periods of duration that preceded man's existence. Limestone has been chiefly elaborated by the organs of animals, many of them of microscopic littleness. Yet lofty ranges of mountains and immense deposits in the intervening valleys have been the result. Nearly one seventh part of the crust of the globe, it has been said, is thus const.i.tuted of the works or remains of animals. And can we doubt but that these rocks are thus spread over the surface of the globe because they are needed by all mankind, like air and water? It must have been benevolence that so arranged the agencies by which they were produced, during the revolution of primeval ages, that they have this wide diffusion. Gypsum and fossil salt are more sparingly diffused; but still enough is always to be found to meet the demand. Nor is it reasonable to doubt that the same prospective goodness which provided for coal and limestone, commissioned other agencies to lay up a store of gypsum, salt, bitumen, clay, and other substances dug out of the earth for man's benefit.

_My eighth geological argument for the divine benevolence is based upon the perfect adaptation of the natures of animals and plants to the varying condition of the globe through all the periods of its past history._

The very slight changes in climate, situation, and food, that will destroy most species of animals and plants, is hard to be realized by man, whose nature will sustain very great changes of this kind. So will most of the animals and plants that have been domesticated by man, and which accompany him into every soil and climate. But the great ma.s.s of animals and plants would perish by such a transplantation. They are adapted to a particular region, often of narrow limits; and to remove them from thence, even to one slightly diverse, is to cause their deterioration and final destruction. In other words, their natures are exactly adapted to the place of habitation a.s.signed them. And it must have required infinite wisdom thus to fit the delicate machinery of animal and vegetable organization to the great variety of circ.u.mstances on the globe in which it is placed. But we find that same wisdom to have been manifested in all the vast periods of organic life. We have the most unequivocal evidence that the condition of the earth has undergone important changes. We cannot examine the remarkable flora and fauna of the older rocks, the gigantic sauroid fishes, the huge orthocerat.i.tes and ammonites, the heteroc.l.i.tic trilobites, and the strange sigillaria and lepidodendra, calamites and asterophyllites, the lofty conifer, and the anomalous cycade,--we cannot examine these without realizing that a state of the globe very different from the present must have existed when they had possession of it. And when we contemplate also the enormous saurians and batrachians of the middle secondary rocks, and the colossal quadrupeds of the tertiary strata, we cannot doubt that a tropical or an ultra-tropical climate must have prevailed in high northern lat.i.tudes during their existence. We perceive that there has been a gradual decrease of temperature on the surface from the earliest times. In each successive race of organized beings which have been placed on the globe, there must have been, therefore, some change of const.i.tution to adapt them to the altered state of the climate and productions of the earth. And we find this alteration to have been always made with consummate skill, so as to secure the most complete development of organic beings, and the greatest enjoyment to sensitive natures. Malevolence would not have done this; for it might with infinite knowledge at command, have filled each successive period of the world with natures unadapted to the mutable condition of things, capable, indeed, of a prolonged existence, not to enjoy, but only to suffer. But infinite benevolence was fitting up this world by slow secondary agencies for the elevated races which now occupy it, especially for one species, rational and immortal; and it lavished its kindness and wisdom by filling the world, during those preparatory ages, with mult.i.tudes of happy beings, fitted exactly to each altered condition of the air, the water, and the soil.

_My ninth and last geological argument for the divine benevolence is founded upon the permanence and security of the world, in spite of the mighty changes it has undergone, and the powerful agencies to which it is now subject._

When we learn from the records of geology, as they are inscribed upon the rocks, how numerous and thorough have been the revolutions of the surface and the crust of the globe in past ages; how often and how long the present dry land has been alternately above and beneath the ocean; how frequently the crust of the globe has been fractured, bent, and dislocated,--now lifted upward, and now thrown downward, and now folded by lateral pressure; how frequently melted matter has been forced through its strata and through its fissures to the surface; in short, how every particle of the accessible portions of the globe has undergone entire metamorphoses; and especially when we recollect what strong evidence there is that oceans of liquid matter exist beneath the solid crust, and that probably the whole interior of the earth is in that condition, with expansive energy sufficient to rend the globe into fragments,--when we review all these facts, we cannot but feel that the condition of the surface of the globe must be one of great insecurity and liability to change. But it is not so. On the contrary, the present state of the globe is one of permanent uniformity and entire security, except those comparatively slight catastrophes which result from earthquakes, volcanoes, and local deluges. Even the climate has experienced no general change within historic times, and the profound mathematical researches of Baron Fourier have demonstrated that, even though the internal parts of the globe are in an incandescent state, beneath a crust thirty or forty miles, the temperature at the surface has long since ceased to be affected by the melted central ma.s.s; that it is not now more than one seventeenth of a degree higher than it would be if the interior were ice; and that hundreds of thousands of years will not see it lowered, from this cause, more than the seventeenth part of a degree. And as to the apprehension that the entire crust of the globe may be broken through, and fall into the melted matter beneath, just reflect what solidity and strength there must be in a ma.s.s of hard rock from fifty to one hundred miles in thickness, and your fears of such a catastrophe will probably vanish.

Now, such a uniformity of climate and security from general ruin are essential to the comfort and existence of animal nature. But it must have required infinite wisdom and benevolence so to arrange and balance the mighty elements of change and ruin which exist in the earth, that they should hold one another in check, and make the world a quiet, unchanged, and secure dwelling-place for so many thousands of years. Surely that wisdom must have been guided by infinite benevolence. And it would seem from geology that the same union of wisdom and benevolence have always arranged the past conditions of the earth. For, during each of the periods of organic existence, uniformity and security seem to have prevailed so long as the purposes of the Deity required. In early times, indeed, when animals were mostly confined to the waters, it was not necessary that the dry land should be as exempt as at present from catastrophes; and probably they were then more frequent; and it may be that, while there were uniformity and security in one portion of the globe, or in one element, there might have been disturbance and desolation in others. And it is doubtful whether such general quiet has ever prevailed for so long a time as during the present, or historic period. We see a reason for this in the fact that never before were so many animals in existence, with a structure so delicate and complicated.

Such are the evidences of divine benevolence, drawn from a field at first view most unpromising. And yet, when we come to look beyond the surface, where do we find more decisive or more numerous indications of G.o.d's beneficence? They are not like many hasty generalizations, which superficial examination has often brought from natural phenomena in proof of this same truth, but which, although beautiful at first view, must be abandoned upon careful research. But these, though repulsive at first, gain solidity and beauty by examination. And they are the more interesting because they come from an unexpected quarter. Men have been accustomed to search among the drift piled up by water and ice, among dislocated and rent strata of rocks, among mountains overturned and fields made desolate by volcanic eruptions, for the mementoes of penal inflictions; but they have not imagined that divine benevolence might be seen among these disturbances and desolations; and that simply because they confined their views to the immediate effect of geological agencies, and did not enlarge their views to take in their connection with the great system of the universe. But now that we find the stamp of benevolence even here, we learn an instructive lesson. Every reflecting mind is aware that the doctrine of divine benevolence lies at the foundation of all natural and revealed religion, and that until this be established we labor in vain to erect a superstructure. It is well known, also, that the existence of natural and moral evil has been considered a strong objection to this great truth. Now, geology furnishes us with many examples, in which agencies, often fraught with terrific evils, are nevertheless eminently beneficial when the whole extent of their operation is taken into account.

Why is it not a fair inference that, in all other cases where evils stand out prominently, they are only incidental results of some wide system of operations, of which our limited vision embraces only a part, but whose tendencies as a whole are eminently salutary, and whose incidental evils do, in fact, increase the salutary effects? If so, what reason have we to believe that, when the light of eternity shall clarify our mental eye, and enlarge our knowledge of the present system of the universe, we shall find all "partial evil to be universal good," and that our narrow views alone threw obscurity and difficulty over this subject in this life? O, if even here so many rays of divine love find their way into our narrow prison-house, what will be their brightness when they pour in upon us from the unveiled glories of the heavenly world!

LECTURE VII.

DIVINE BENEVOLENCE AS EXHIBITED IN A FALLEN WORLD.

The geological proofs of the divine benevolence considered in the last lecture present only a partial view of that glorious characteristic of Jehovah. I am tempted, therefore, to exhibit it in its more general aspect and broader relations. This will necessarily bring into view other important religious truths respecting man's fallen condition and character, and, as a consequence, the modified aspect of the divine goodness in such a world.

To those dest.i.tute of a revelation this world has, indeed, ever seemed an inextricable maze, an enigma too dark for human wisdom to solve. Nor have those favored with the Bible agreed in their modes of clearing up the mystery. Having endeavored to explain all by following out some leading and favorite idea, their theories have varied as these predominant conceptions differed. One, for instance, fixes his gaze so intently upon the divine benevolence that he is blind to every manifestation of Jehovah's sterner attributes. Another, deeply impressed with the story of man's original apostasy, sees only vindictive justice, and penal infliction, and disordered action, in all the movements of nature and the trials and sufferings of man. A third, captivated by the discoveries of modern geology, relative to the existence of suffering and death in the world before man's creation, and learning, moreover, from physiology, that death is a general law of all organized natures, vegetable as well as animal, is led to doubt whether the disorders of the world have any important connection with man's apostasy.

Now, it were easy to show that our views on these subjects have a most important bearing upon our entire system of theology; and, therefore, they deserve our most thorough and candid examination. To such an examination I now invite your serious attention.

It is not my object to appeal to the Scriptures to prove the divine benevolence. That were an easy task. So, were this an unfallen world, every object and event would be redolent of G.o.d's goodness. But where sin and death abound, that goodness must a.s.sume a different aspect, since its unmixed manifestation would work mischief. Now, the point aimed at in this lecture is to ascertain whether natural religion can point out decisive evidence of divine benevolence. We can conceive it quite possible that in a fallen world G.o.d might find it necessary so to mingle displays of justice with those of goodness, that man might be in doubt which predominated.

There is another reason for considering this subject apart from scriptural evidence. We need to establish the doctrine of divine benevolence as a basis on which to rest the evidences of inspiration; or, rather, we want to be able to a.s.sume G.o.d's benevolence, in arguing for the truth of the Bible, and in judging of its contents. This doctrine, therefore, is one of the most important, as it is certainly the most difficult, in natural theology.

Obviously the first step in this investigation must be to ascertain what is the real state of this world, as a manifestation of the benevolence and justice of G.o.d. In other words, we need to ascertain what exhibitions of these attributes are presented to us in nature, and in the economy of Providence, and how much of the evil in the world is to be imputed to man's perversion of the gifts of G.o.d. I shall proceed, therefore, to state the main points on this subject which fair and candid reasoning seems to me to sustain. When these points are before us, with a summary of the evidence by which they are supported, we shall be prepared to deduce important conclusions respecting G.o.d's character and dispensations, and man's position and destiny.

_In the first place, then, I maintain that benevolence decidedly predominates in the present system of the world._

Let this proposition be fully understood. It does not mean that there is no mixture of evil in the operations of nature, but only that good decidedly overbalances the evil. And by the operations of nature I mean those processes resulting from natural laws, which are uninfluenced by the perverseness of man. How much of evil may be imputed to his perversion of the gifts of Providence will be considered in another place, as will also those cases in which evil seems inseparable from the original arrangements of the world. All that I am now concerned to prove is, that, in a vast majority of instances, we see the marks of benevolent design and benevolent operation in the arrangements of nature.

This position is established, in the first place, by the fact that the design of every natural contrivance is to produce happiness.

To show that such is the case, by an appeal to facts, would be, in truth, to write the history of every natural process, and show its design. But it will be sufficient to consider only such cases as appear most decidedly to militate against my position, and to show that even these are not designed to cause evil or suffering.

How does it happen, then, you may inquire, that evil is the result of a mult.i.tude of contrivances and processes in nature? It is an incidental effect, I answer; that is, an effect happening aside from the main design of the contrivance. Take a few ill.u.s.trations.

No one can doubt that the law of gravity is essential to the preservation and comfort of the world, and to the harmonious motions of the heavenly bodies. Yet how often does it give rise to frightful accidents to men and animals! But when they are crushed by falling bodies, or by falling themselves, who imagines this to be the design of gravitation? How clear that its real object is beneficial, and that the evil resulting from it is unavoidable in a world const.i.tuted like ours! Why the world is not const.i.tuted differently, is an inquiry which men may try to answer; but an answer is not important to my present object.

Take an example from the organic world. Every one is aware that without a nervous system in animals there would be no sensibility, nor sensation, and, of course, no enjoyment; and without these, animals would be unconscious of danger, and would not guard against it, nor withdraw from it. We are sure, therefore, that these two objects are the grand design of the nervous system, and, of course, it is a benevolent design. But the nervous system causes a great deal of suffering as well as pleasure.

Obviously, however, this is only an incidental effect, which could not be prevented without a miracle; while the main design is to produce happiness and guard against evil.

It may be asked, however, by what principle we can determine what is the design of a contrivance, and what the incidental effect. Why select a part of the effects, and call them the object aimed at by the contriver, while we regard others as incidental, and merely permitted, not intended?

The principle on which we make this distinction is very clear. We judge of the design of a contrivance by its predominant tendencies and effects. If evil as often results as good, misery as often as happiness, we could not decide whether the design was benevolent or malevolent, or an indifference to both. But the benevolent tendency and effects of every natural contrivance are so obvious, and so immensely outweigh all its evil results, that we are compelled to admit the design of the Author of nature to be benevolent. And, therefore, when we see evil occasionally result from such contrivances, we are authorized to say that this is only an incidental effect; not, indeed, wholly undesigned, for we cannot doubt that G.o.d has a design in the permission of all evil. But for each particular arrangement and movement in nature we can discover a predominant and benevolent object.

Take another example from the human frame. In that frame we find a mult.i.tude of organs, nearly all of which are obviously adapted to a particular use. Now, the anatomist cannot lay his finger upon one of them, and say, This was intended to produce derangement and suffering in the system. Here is a muscle contrived to clog the operations of its neighbors; here a blood-vessel adapted to corrupt the blood and produce disease; here a gland whose object is to secrete a poisonous fluid, to contaminate the whole system; here a nerve made to produce pain; here a plexus of vessels suited to bring on disease. On the contrary, this anatomist perceives at once that all the organs of the animal system, and their collocation, are fitted in the best possible manner to produce health. It is obvious at a glance that this is their design.

But if such be the fact, how happens it that so few persons pa.s.s through life without disease? Is it all to be imputed to an abuse and perversion of the organs and powers of life? Not so, in my opinion. But those organs are all liable to disease; and when we see how delicate and complicated they are, we ought not to wonder that even the unavoidable causes of derangement should often bring it on. Yet, after all, health is the rule and the object, and disease only the exception. But I shall say more on this subject in another part of the argument.

Some one, however, who hears me, has doubtless ere this had his thoughts recur to the organs of carnivorous animals, the poisonous fangs of serpents, and the organs of the scorpion, the tarantula, and of insects, for the generation and protrusion of deadly poison. Here we have organs expressly provided for the destruction of other animals. That such is their design, no physiologist can doubt; and hence they are intended to produce suffering, and not happiness.

Is this an exactly correct statement of the case? True, suffering is the result of such organs; but the arrangement is intended to accomplish still higher purposes. The leading one is to procure food for sustenance, the other is self-defence. Both of these are essential to the animal's continued existence. That suffering should be incidentally connected with instruments or organs so important, is no more difficult to explain than is the existence of evil any where. The object even of these contrivances, then, is beneficial. And if so, I know of no other example in nature so seemingly adverse to the position I have laid down, that the main object of every natural contrivance is benevolent in its origin and results. If this be so, how clearly does it indicate the character of the contriver to be benevolent!

My second argument is derived from the fact that the organic functions often produce pleasure where suffering was just as consistent with their most perfect action; or I might say that such are the arrangements of the natural world, that pleasure often results to sentient beings from its operations, when they might have been as perfectly performed with the production of pain. A few ill.u.s.trations will render the meaning of this position obvious.

As we look abroad upon nature, one of the most striking traits we discover is its unbounded variety. With the Psalmist we involuntarily exclaim, _O Lord, how manifold are thy works!_ It is not merely variety as to form, texture, att.i.tude, and arrangement; but who can describe the countless tints of coloring which are spread over the heavens and the earth? Now, there is in the human soul an apt.i.tude to be pleased with variety; nay, there is a craving for it. Nor can there be a more terrible infliction than unvarying monotony and sameness of appearance, arrangement, and action. If, therefore, the Creator had been malevolent, or indifferent to the happiness of man and other sentient beings, he might have gratified this disposition most perfectly by giving to the human soul its present love of variety, and then spreading over the face of nature a dead uniformity of figure, position, arrangement, and coloring; forming every thing upon the same model. And this might have been done without impairing at all the perfect operation of all her laws that are essential. Every thing might have been as systematic and harmonious as it now is; but sentient beings would have been miserable; and this must have been supremely gratifying to infinite malevolence. He might also have so constructed the organs of hearing, sight, and smell, that every sound might have been ungrateful and grating, every odor repulsive, and every prospect disgusting. While hunger would have urged animals, as it now does, to seek food, its reception might have been painful, or utterly void of gustatory enjoyment. So in regard to social enjoyments; we might have been irresistibly drawn towards our fellow-men, and yet their society might have been hateful in the extreme.

Had such a state of things existed, how very clearly we should have inferred the malevolence of the Author of nature! Or if such a state had been witnessed about as often as its opposite, we might reasonably have said that he was indifferent to the happiness of his creatures. Why, then, may we not, with equal reason, infer his benevolence, when we find, in a vast majority of cases,--nay, for aught I know, universally,--that pleasure is superadded to animal enjoyment where it was wholly unnecessary to the perfect operation of nature's laws?

The fact is, G.o.d has made all nature "beauty to our eye and music to our ear," when it was wholly unnecessary for the perfect operation of her laws; and the inference is irresistible, that he delights in the happiness of his creatures. Nor can the fact that evil exists in the world destroy the force of this argument, unless that evil is so general as to be obviously the design of the Creator in devising and arranging the system of the world. While we admit its existence, we say that it is only incidental, and that pleasure is so often superadded unnecessarily, as to prove happiness to be the design, and evil the exception.

The two arguments above presented are the evidence on which Dr. Paley relies to prove the divine benevolence. They are, indeed, as it seems to me, unanswerable. But if I mistake not, they do by no means exhaust the storehouse of nature's proofs of this fundamental principle of natural and revealed religion. I derive a third argument for the predominance of benevolence in the works of nature from the variety of means often provided for the performance of important functions; so that animals and plants can adapt themselves to different circ.u.mstances, and prolong their existence.

The examples which I have in mind to ill.u.s.trate this argument are all derived from the organic world. I refer, for instance, to the fact that nearly all our muscles, and many other important organs, as the hands, the feet, the eyes, and the lungs, are in pairs, so that if one meets with an injury, or is destroyed, the other can, to some extent, perform the office of both. The brain has two hemispheres, and one of them may be seriously wounded without destroying the healthy action of the other.