God and the World: A Survey of Thought

by Arthur William Robinson

CHAPTER I

THE OLDER ORTHODOXY

Never had there been greater unanimity of opinion in England in regard to the religious interpretation of the world than that which prevailed at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The excesses on the Continent which had accompanied the advocacy of free thought had disposed men's mind to fall back upon authority, and most of all in matters that affected the basis on which the continuance of social order and moral conduct depended. The general position was clearly apprehended, and was accepted as if beyond dispute. Men spoke and thought of the Order of Nature. The world was a Cosmos, a regulated system. Order implied an Orderer. It was regarded by them as obvious that there must have been a First Cause, a great Architect and Maker of the Universe. They agreed with Aquinas that "things which have no perception can only tend toward an end if directed by a conscious and intelligent being. Therefore there is an Intelligence by which all natural things are ordered to an end."[[1]] They were fully prepared to endorse the indignant protest of Bacon: "I had rather believe all the folly of the 'Legend,' and the 'Talmud,' and the 'Alcoran,' than that this universal frame is without a mind."[[2]] In fact no other hypothesis seemed to them thinkable.

If at any time they felt a need for a more elaborate justification of their conviction, they had it ready to their hand in the familiar argument from design. Paley, when he set this out in his famous Natural Theology (1802), was only expressing with conspicuous ability the view that was then accepted in all circles from the highest to the lowest. He was preaching to those who were already in the fullest accord with his doctrine. They followed with eager approbation his reasoning about the watch that he supposed himself to have found on the heath. According to his assumption he had never seen a watch made, nor known of anyone capable of making such a thing. He concludes, nevertheless, that it must have been made by someone. "There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its structure, and designed its use." "Neither would it invalidate our conclusion that the watch sometimes went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly right. The purpose of the machinery, the design and the designer, might be evident in whatever way we accounted for the irregularity of the movement, or whether we could account for it at all." "Nor would it bring any uncertainty into the argument if there were a few parts of the watch concerning which we could not discover, or had not yet discovered, in what manner they conducted to the general effect; or even some parts concerning which we could not ascertain whether they conducted to that effect in any manner whatever." Least of all could it be sufficient to explain that the watch was "nothing more than the result of the laws of metallic nature." "It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode according to which our agent proceeds: it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing."

From the watch we are led on to the eye, which exhibits a skill of design not less, but far greater, than that of the man who gave us the telescope. Then follows a detailed examination of the use of the various bodily organs, the contrivances to be met with in vegetables and animals, the marvellous adaptations of anatomical structure, the provisions for the flight of birds, and for the movements of fishes; with instances of arrangements to suit particular conditions—the long neck of the swan, the minute eye of the mole, the beak of the parrot, the sting of the bee—all furnishing an ever accumulating body of irrefutable evidence to attest the existence and operation of an intelligent Author of Nature.

That these arrangements had been expressly intended to meet the circumstances of each particular case was assumed as necessarily involved in the acceptance of any design at all. It is interesting to observe that Paley did not think it improbable that the Deity may have committed to another being—"nay, there may be many such agents and many ranks of them"—the task of "drawing forth" special creations out of the materials He had made and in subordination to His rules. This, he thought, might in some degree account for the fact that contrivances are not always perfected at once, and that many instruments and methods are employed.

Of the goodness of the Creator no manner of doubt was entertained. For proof of it attention was called to the fact that "in a vast plurality of instances in which contrivance is perceived, the design of the contrivance is beneficial," and to the further fact that "the Deity has superadded pleasure to animal sensations beyond what was necessary for any other purposes or when the purpose, so far as it was necessary, might have been effected by the function of pain." Venomous animals there were, no doubt, but the fang and the sting "may be no less merciful to the victim, than salutary to the devourer"; and it was to be noted "that whilst only a few species possess the venomous property, that property guards the whole tribe." Then again, before we condemn the ordering whereby animals devour one another we must consider what would happen if they did not. "Is it to see the world filled with drooping, superannuated, half-starved, helpless and unhelped animals, that you would alter the present system of pursuit and prey?" "A hare, notwithstanding the number of its dangers and its enemies, is as playful an animal as any other." "It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. 'The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties.... The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them." Where it might have been imagined that there were to be seen miscarriages of the Creator's intentions, these were to be attributed to the presence and influence of mysterious forces of evil. Such attempts to hinder or frustrate the workings of good might be part of a purpose of good because they only afforded fresh opportunities for a display of the Divine wisdom, whose ordinary interventions were accepted as Providences, whilst Miracles supplied the rarer exhibitions of its power.

For the rest, it was our duty to remember that such difficulties as might still be felt must be largely the result of our ignorance. With patience we should learn to know more. A day was coming when much that is now hidden would be made clear, and when the greatness and wisdom and justice of the Almighty Ruler would be wonderfully and fearfully revealed.