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

Yet let us endeavor to suggest some possible explication, while we admit that nothing certain, nothing entirely satisfactory can be reached. The failure of the great writers whose works we have been contemplating may well teach us humility, make us distrust ourselves, and moderate within us any sanguine hopes of success. But they should not make us wholly despair of at least showing in what direction the solution of the difficulty is to be sought, and whereabouts it will probably be found situated, when our feeble reason shall be strengthened and expanded. For one cause of their discomfiture certainly has been their aiming too high, attempting a complete solution of a problem which only admitted of approximation, and discussion of limits.

It is admitted on all hands that the demonstration is complete which shows the existence of intelligence and design in the universe. The structure of the eye and ear in exact confirmity to the laws of optics and acoustics, shows as clearly as any experiment can show anything, that the source, cause or origin is common both to the properties of light and the formation of the lenses and retina in the eye—both to the properties of sound and the tympanum, malleus, incus and stapes of the ear. No doubt whatever can exist upon the subject, any more than, if we saw a particular order issued to a body of men to perform certain uncommon evolutions, and afterwards saw the same body performing those same evolutions, we could doubt their having received the order. A designing and intelligent and skillful author of these admirably adapted works is equally a clear inference from the same facts. We can no more doubt it than we can question, when we see a mill grinding corn into flour, that the machinery was made by some one who designed by means of it to prepare the materials of bread. The same conclusions are drawn in a vast variety of other instances, both with respect to the parts of human and other bodies, and with respect to most of the other arrangements of nature. Similar conclusions are also drawn from our consciousness, and the knowledge which it gives us of the structure of the mind.[3] Thus we find that attention quickens memory and enables us to recollect; and that habit renders all exertions and all acquisitions easy, beside having the effect of alleviating pain.

But when we carry our survey into other parts, whether of the natural or moral system, we cannot discover any design at all. We frequently perceive structures the use of which we know nothing about; parts of the animal frame that apparently have no functions to perform—nay, that are the source of pain without yielding any perceptible advantage; arrangements and movements of bodies which are of one particular kind, and yet we are quite at a loss to discern any reason why they might not have been of many other descriptions; operations of nature that seem to serve no purpose whatever; and other operations and other arrangements, chosen equally without any beneficial view, and yet which often give rise to much apparent confusion and mischief. Now, the question is, first, whether in any one of these cases of arrangement and structures with no visible object at all, we can for a moment suppose that there really is no object answered, or only conceive that we have been unable to discover it? Secondly, whether in the cases where mischief sometimes is perceived, and no other purpose appears to be effected, we do not almost as uniformly lay the blame on our own ignorance, and conclude, not that the arrangement was made without any design, and that mischief arises without any contriver, but that if we knew the whole case we should find a design and contrivance, and also that the apparent mischief would sink into the general good? It is not necessary to admit, for our present purpose, this latter proposition, though it brings us closer to the matter in hand; it is sufficient for the present to admit, what no one doubts, that when a part of the body, for instance, is discovered, to which, like the spleen, we cannot assign any function in the animal system, we never think of concluding that it is made for no use, but only that we have as yet not been able to discover its use.

Now, let us ask, why do we, without any hesitation whatever, or any exception whatever, always and immediately arrive at this conclusion respecting intelligence and design? Nothing could be more unphilosophical, nay, more groundless, than such a process of reasoning, if we had only been able to trace design in one or two instances; for instance, if we found only the eye to show proofs of contrivance, it would be wholly gratuitous, when we saw the ear, to assume that it was adapted to the nature of sound, and still more so, if, on examination, we perceived it bore no perceptible relation to the laws of acoustics. The proof of contrivance in one particular is nothing like a proof, nay, does not even furnish the least presumption of contrivance in other particulars; because, a priori, it is just as easy to suppose one part of nature to be designed for a purpose, and another part, nay, all other parts, to be formed at random and without any contrivance, as to suppose that the formation of the whole is governed by design. Why, then, do we, invariably and undoubtedly, adopt the course of reasoning which has been mentioned, and never for a moment suspect anything to be formed without some reason—some rational purpose? The only ground of this belief is, that we have been able distinctly to trace design in so vast a majority of cases as leaves us no power of doubting that, if our faculties had been sufficiently powerful, or our investigation sufficiently diligent, we should also have been able to trace it in those comparatively few instances respecting which we still are in the dark.

It may be worth while to give a few instances of the ignorance in which we once were of design in some important arrangements of nature, and of the knowledge which we now possess to show the purpose of their formation. Before Sir Isaac Newton’s optical discoveries, we could not tell why the structure of the eye was so complex, and why several lenses and humors were required to form a picture of objects upon the retina. Indeed, until Dolland’s subsequent discovery of the achromatic effect of combining various glasses, and Mr. Blair’s still more recent experiments on the powers of different refracting media, we were not able distinctly to perceive the operation and use of the complicacy in the structure of the eye. We now well understand its nature, and are able to comprehend how that which had at one time, nay, for ages, seemed to be an unnecessary complexity; forms the most perfect of all optical instruments, and according to the most certain laws of refraction and of dispersion.

So, too, we had observed for some centuries the forms of the orbits in which the heavenly bodies move, and we had found these to be ellipses with a very small eccentricity. But why this was the form of those orbits no one could even conjecture. If any person, the most deeply skilled in mathematical science, and the most internally convinced of the universal prevalence of design and contrivance in the structure of the universe, had been asked what reason there was for the planets moving in ellipses so, nearly approaching to circles, he could not have given any good reason, at least beyond a guess. The force of gravitation, even admitting that to be, as it were, a condition of the creation of matter, would have made those bodies revolve in ellipses of any degree of eccentricity just as well, provided the angle and the force of projection had been varied. Then, why was this form rather, than any other chosen? No one knew; yet no one doubted that there was ample reason for it. Accordingly the sublime discoveries of Lagrange and La Place have shown us that this small eccentricity is one material element in the formula by which it is shown that all the irregularities of the system are periodical, and that the deviation never can exceed a certain amount on either hand.

But, again, while we are ignorant of this, perhaps the most sublime truth in all science, we were always arguing as if the system had an imperfection, as if the disturbing forces of the different planets and the sun, acting on one another, constantly changed the orbits of each planet, and must, in a course of ages, work the destruction of the whole planetary arrangement which we had contemplated with so great admiration and with awe. It was deemed enough if we could show that this derangement must be extremely slow, and that, therefore, the system might last for many more ages without requiring any interposition of omnipotent skill to preserve it by rectifying its motions. Thus one of the most celebrated writers above cited argues that, “from the nature of gravitation and the concentricity of the orbits, the irregularities produced are so slowly operated in contracting, dilating and inclining those orbits, that the system may go on for many thousand years before any extraordinary interference becomes necessary in order to correct it.” And Dr. Burnett adds, that “those small irregularities cast no discredit on the good contrivance of the whole.” Nothing, however, could cast greater discredit if it were as he supposed, and as all men previous to the late discoveries supposed; it was only, they rather think, a “small irregularity,” which was every hour tending to the destruction of the whole system, and which must have deranged or confounded its whole structure long before it destroyed it. Yet now we see that the wisdom, to which a thousand years are as one day, not satisfied with constructing a fabric which might last for “many thousand years without His interference,” has so formed it that it may thus endure forever.

Now if such be the grounds of our belief in the universal prevalence of Design, and such the different lights which at different periods of our progress in science we possess upon this branch of the divine government; if we undoubtingly believe that contrivance is universal only because we can trace and comprehend it in a great majority of instances, and if the number of exceptions to the rule is occasionally diminished as our knowledge of the particulars is from time to time extended—may we not apply the same principle to the apprehension of Benevolent purpose, and infer from the number of instances in which we plainly perceive a good intention, that if we were better acquainted with those cases in which a contrary intention is now apparent, we should there, too, find the generally pervading character of Benevolence to prevail? Not only is this the manner in which we reason respecting the Design of the Creator from examining his works; it is the manner in which we treat the conduct of our fellow-creatures. A man of the most extensive benevolence and strictest integrity in his general deportment has done something equivocal; nay, something apparently harsh and cruel; we are slow to condemn him; we give him credit for acting with a good motive and for a righteous purpose; we rest satisfied that “if we only knew everything he would come out blameless.” This arises from a just and a sound view of human character, and its general consistency with itself. The same reasoning may surely be applied with all humility and reverence, to the works and the intentions of the great Being who has implanted in our minds the principles which lead to that just and sound view of the deeds and motives of men.

But let the argument be rested upon our course of reasoning respecting divine contrivance. The existence of Evil is in no case more apparent than the existence of Disorder seems to be in many things. To go no further than the last example which has been given—the mathematician could perceive the derangement in the planetary orbits, could demonstrate that it must ensue from the mutual action of the heavenly bodies on each other, could calculate its progress with the utmost exactness, could tell with all nicety how much it would alter the forms of the orbits in a given time, could foresee the time when the whole system must be irretrievably destroyed by its operation as a mathematical certainty. Nothing, that we call evil can be much more certainly perceived than this derangement, of itself an evil, certainly a great imperfection, if the system was observed by the mind of man as we regard human works. Yet we now find, from well considering some things which had escaped attention, that the system is absolutely free from derangement; that all the disturbances counterbalance each other; and that the orbits never can either be flattened or bulged out beyond a definite or very inconsiderable quantity. Can any one doubt that there is also a reason for even the small and limited, this regular and temporary derangement? Why it exists at all, or in any the least degree, we as yet know not. But who will presume to doubt that it has a reason which would at once satisfy our minds were it known to us? Nay, who will affirm that the discovery of it may not yet be in reserve for some later and happier age? Then are we not entitled to apply the same reasoning to what at present appears Evil in a system of which, after all we know of it, so much still remains concealed from our view?

The mere act of creation in a Being of wisdom so admirable and power so vast, seems to make it extremely probable that perfect goodness accompanies the exertion of his perfect skill. There is something so repugnant to all our feelings, but also to all the conceptions of our reason, in the supposition of such a Being desiring the misery, for its own sake, of the Beings whom he voluntarily called into existence and endowed with a sentient nature, that the mind naturally and irresistibly recoils from such a thought. But this is not all. If the nature of that great Being were evil, his power being unbounded, there would be some proportion between the amounts of ills and the monuments of that power. Yet we are struck dumb with the immensity of His works to which no imperfection can be ascribed, and in which no evil can be traced, while the amount of mischief that we see might sink into a most insignificant space; and is such as a being of inconsiderable power and very limited skill could easily have accomplished. This is not the same consideration with the balance of good against evil; and inquirers do not seem to have sufficiently attended to it. The argument, however, deserves much attention, for it is purely and strictly inductive. The divine nature is shown to be clothed with prodigious power and incomparable wisdom and skill,—power and skill so vast and so exceeding our comprehension that we ordinarily term them infinite, and are only inclined to conceive the possibility of limiting, by the course of the argument upon evil, one alternative of which is assumed to raise an exception. But admitting on account of the question under discussion, that we have only a right to say that power and skill are prodigiously great, though possibly not boundless, they are plainly shown in the phenomena of the universe to be the attributes of a Being, who, if evil-disposed, could have made the monuments of Ill upon a scale resembling those of Power and Skill; so that if those things which seem to us evil be really the result of a mischievous design in such a Being, we cannot comprehend why they are upon so entirely different a scale. This is a strong presumption from the facts that we are wrong in imputing those appearances to such a disposition. If so, what seems evil must needs be capable of some other explanation consistent with divine goodness—that is to say, would not prove to be evil at all if we knew the whole of those facts.