The Fallen Star, or, the History of a False Religion by E.L. Bulwer; And, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil by Lord Brougham

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton; Baron Henry Brougham Brougham and Vaux

But, thirdly, in whatever light we view the hypothesis, it seems exposed to a similar objection, namely, of explaining nothing in its application, while it is wholly gratuitous in itself. It assumes, of course, that creation was the act of the good Being; and it also assumes that Being’s goodness to have been perfect, though his power is limited. Then as he must have known the existence of the evil principle and foreseen the certainty of misery being occasioned by his existence, why did he voluntarily create sentient beings, to put them, in some respects at least, under the evil one’s power, and thus be exposed to suffering? The good Being, according to this theory, is the remote cause of the evil which is endured, because but for his act of creation the evil Being could have had, no subjects whereon to work mischief; so that the hypothesis wholly fails in removing, by more than one step, the difficulty which it was invented to solve.

Fourthly, there is no advantage gained to the argument by supposing two Beings, rather than one Being of a mixed nature. The facts lead to this supposition just as naturally as to the hypothesis of two principles. The existence of the evil Being is as much a detraction from the power of the good one, as if we only at once suppose the latter to be of limited power, and that he prefers making and supporting creatures who suffer much less than they enjoy, to making no creatures at all. The supposition that he made them as happy as he could, and that not being able to make them less miserable, he yet perceived that upon the whole their existence would occasion more happiness than if they never had any being at all, will just account for the phenomena as well as the Manichean theory, and will as little as that theory assume any malevolence in the power which created and preserved the universe. If, however, it be objected that this hypothesis leaves unexplained the fetters upon the good Being’s power, the answer is obvious; it leaves those fetters not at all less explained than the Manichean theory does; for that theory gives no explanation of the existence of a counteracting principle, and it assumes both an antagonistic power, to limit the Deity’s power, and a malevolent principle to set the antagonistic power in motion; whereas our supposition assumes no malevolence at all, but only a restraint upon the divine power.

Fifthly, this leads us to another and most formidable objection. To conceive the eternal existence of one Being infinite in power, “self-created and creating all others,” is by no means impossible. Indeed, as everything must have had a cause, nothing we see being by possibility self-created, we naturally mount from particulars to generals, until finally we rise to the idea of a first cause, uncreated, and self-existing, and eternal. If the phenomena compels us to affix limits to his goodness, we find it impossible to conceive limits to the power of a creative, eternal, self-existing principle. But even supposing we could form the conception of such a Being having his power limited as well as his goodness, still we can conceive no second Being independent of him. This would necessarily lead to the supposition of some third Being, above and antecedent to both, and the creator of both—the real first cause—and then the whole question would be to solve over again,—Why these two antagonistic Beings were suffered to exist by the great Being of all?

The Manichean doctrine, then, is exposed to every objection to which a theory can be obnoxious. It is gratuitous; it is inapplicable to the facts; it supposes more causes than are necessary; it fails to explain the phenomena, leaving the difficulties exactly where it found them. Nevertheless, such is the theory, how easily soever refuted when openly avowed and explicitly stated, which in various disguises appears to pervade the explanations, given of the facts by most of the other systems; nay, to form, secretly and unacknowledged, their principal ground-work. For it really makes very little difference in the matter whether we are to account for evil by holding that the Deity has created as much happiness as was consistent with “the nature of things,” and has taken every means of avoiding all evil except “where it necessarily existed” or at once give those limiting influences a separate and independent existence, and call them by a name of their own, which is the Manichean hypothesis.

The most remarkable argument on this subject, and the most distinguished both for its clear and well ordered statement, and for the systematic shape which it assumes, is that of Archbishop King. It is the great text-book of those who study this subject; and like the famous legal work of Littleton, it has found an expounder yet abler and more learned than the author himself. Bishop Law’s commentary is full of information, of reasoning and of explication; nor can we easily find anything valuable upon the subject which is not contained in the volumes of that work. It will, however, only require a slight examination of the doctrines maintained by these learned and pious men, to satisfy us that they all along either assume the thing to be proved, or proceed upon suppositions quite inconsistent with the infinite power of the Deity—the only position which raises a question, and which makes the difficulty that requires to be solved.

According to all the systems as well as this one, evil is of two kinds—physical and moral. To the former class belong all the sufferings to which sentient beings are exposed from the qualities and affections of matter independent of their own acts; the latter class consists of the sufferings of whatever kind which arise from their own conduct. This division of the subject, however, is liable to one serious objection; it comprehends under the second head a class of evils which ought more properly to be ranged under the first. Nor is this a mere question of classification: it affects the whole scope of the argument. The second of the above-mentioned classes comprehends both the physical evils which human agency causes, but which it would have no power to cause unless the qualities of matter were such as to produce pain, privation and death; and also the moral evil of guilt which may possibly exist independent of material agency, but which, whether independent or not upon that physical action, is quite separable from it, residing wholly in the mind. Thus a person who destroys the life of another produces physical evil by means of the constitution of matter, and moral evil is the source of his wicked action. The true arrangement then is this: Physical evil is that which depends on the constitution of matter, or only is so far connected with the constitution of mind as that the nature and existence of a sentient being must be assumed in order to its mischief being felt. And this physical evil is of two kinds; that which originates in human action, and that which is independent of human action, befalling us from the unalterable course of nature. Of the former class are the pains, privations and destruction inflicted by men one upon another; of the latter class are diseases, old age and death. Moral evil consists in the crimes, whether of commission or omission, which men are guilty of—including under the latter head those sufferings which we endure from ill-regulated minds through want of fortitude or self-control. It is clear that as far as the question of the origin of evil is concerned, the first of these two classes, physical evil, depends upon the properties of matter, and the last upon those of mind. The second as well as the first subdivision of the physical class depends upon matter; because, however ill-disposed the agent’s mind may be, he could inflict the mischief only in consequence of the constitution of matter. Therefore, the Being, who created matter enabled him to perpetrate the evil, even admitting that this Being did not, by creating the mind also give rise to the evil disposition; and admitting that, as far as regards this disposition it has the same origin with the evil of the second class, or moral evil, the acts of a rational agent.

It is quite true that many reasoners refuse to allow any distinction between the evil produced by natural causes and the evils caused by rational agents, whether as regards their own guilt, or the mischief it caused to others. Those reasoners deny that the creation of man’s will and the endowing it with liberty explains anything; they hold that the creation of a mind whose will is to do evil, amounts to the same thing, and belongs to the same class, with the creation of matter whose nature is to give pain and misery. But this position, which involves the doctrine of necessity, must, at the very least, admit of one modification. Where no human agency whatever is interposed, and the calamity comes without any one being to blame for it, the mischief seems a step, and a large step, nearer the creative or the superintending cause, because it is, as far as men go, altogether inevitable. The main tendency of the argument, therefore, is confined to physical evil; and this has always been found the most difficult to account for, that is to reconcile with the government of a perfectly good and powerful Being. It would indeed be very easily explained, and the reconcilement would be readily made, if we were at liberty to suppose matter independent in its existence, and in certain qualities, of the divine control; but this would be to suppose the Deity’s power limited and imperfect, which is just one horn of the Epicurean dilemma, “Aut vult et non potest;” and in assuming this, we do not so much beg the question as wholly give it up and admit we cannot solve the difficulty. Yet obvious as this is, we shall presently see that the reasoners who have undertaken the solution, and especially King and Law, under such phrases as “the nature of things,” and “the laws of the material universe,” have been constantly, through the whole argument, guilty of this petitio principii (begging the question), or rather this abandonment of the whole question, and never more so than at the very moment when they complacently plumed themselves upon having overcome the difficulty.

Having premised these observations for the purpose of clearing the ground and avoiding confusion in the argument, we may now consider that Archbishop King’s theory is in both its parts; for there are in truth two distinct explanations, the one resembling an argument a priori, the other an argument a posteriori. It is, however, not a little remarkable that Bishop Law, in the admirable abstract or analysis which he gives of the Archbishop’s treatise at the end of his preface, begins with the second branch, omitting all mention of the first, as if he considered it to be merely introductory matter; and yet his fourteenth note (t. cap. I s. 3.) shows that he was aware of its being an argument wholly independent of the rest of the reasonings; for he there says that the author had given one demonstration a priori, and that no difficulties raised by an examination of the phenomena, no objection a posteriori, ought to overrule it, unless these difficulties are equally certain and clear with the demonstration, and admit of no solution consistent with that demonstration.

The necessity of a first cause being shown, and it being evident that therefore this cause is uncreated and self-existent, and independent of any other, the conclusion is next drawn that its power must be infinite. This is shown by the consideration that there is no other antecedent cause, and no other principle which was not created by the first cause, and consequently which was not of inferior power; therefore, there is nothing which can limit the power of the first cause; and there being no limiter or restrainer, there can be no limitation or restriction.

Again, the infinity of the Deity’s power is attempted to be proved in another way.