On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

by William Whewell

And now let us consider the question which has just been asked:—how we can conceive the Divine Benevolence and Justice to be completely and universally realized in the moral world, as the Ideas of Space, Time, &c. are in the physical world?

7. Our Ideas of Benevolence, Justice, and of other Virtues, may be elevated above their original narrowness, and purified from their original coarseness, by moral culture; as our Ideas of Force and Matter, of Substance and Elements, and the like, may be made clear and convincing by philosophical and scientific culture. This appears, in some degree, in the history of moral terms, as the progress of clearness and efficacy in the Idea of the material sciences appears in the history of the terms belonging to such sciences. Thus among the Romans, while they confined their kindly affections within their own class, a stranger was universally an enemy; peregrinus was synonymous with hostis. But at a later period, they regarded all men as having a claim on their kindness; and he who felt and acted on this claim was called humane. This meaning of the word humanity shows the progress (in their Ideas at least) of the virtue which the word humanity designates.

8. And as man can thus rise to a point of view where he sees that man is to be loved as man, so the humane and loving man inevitably assumes that God loves all men; and thus assumes that there is, or may be, a love of man in man's heart, which represents and resembles in kind, however remote in degree, the love of God to man.

But as in man's love of man there are very widely different stages, rising from the narrow love of a savage to his family or his tribe, to the widest and warmest feelings of the most enlightened and loving universal philanthropist;—so must we suppose that there are stages immeasurably wider by which God's love of man is more comprehensive and more tender than any love of man for man. The religious philosopher will fully assent to the expressions of this conviction delivered by pious men in all ages. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and beneath thee are the everlasting arms." "When my father and my mother forsake me the Lord taketh me up," is the expression of Divine Love, consistent with philosophy as well as with revelation. But as the Divine Love is more comprehensive and enduring than any human love, so is it in an immeasurably greater degree, more enlightened. It is not a love that seeks merely the pleasure and gratification of its object; that even an enlightened human love does not do. It seeks the good of its objects; and such a good as is the greatest good, to an Intelligence which can embrace all cases, causes, and contingencies. To our limited understanding, evil seems often to be inflicted, and the good of a part seems inconsistent with the good of another part. Our attempts to conceive a Supreme and complete Good provided for all the creatures which exist in the universe, baffle and perplex us, even more than our attempts to conceive infinite space, infinite time, and an infinite chain of causation. But as the most careful attention which we can give to the Ideas of Space, Time, and Causation convinces us that these Ideas are perfectly clear and complete in the Divine Mind, and that our perplexity and confusion on these subjects arise only from the vast distance between the Divine Mind and our human mind, so is it reasonable to suppose the same to be the source of the confusion which we experience when we attempt to determine what most conduces to the good of our fellow-creatures; and when, urged by love to them, we endeavour to promote this good. We can do little of what Infinite Love would do, yet are we not thereby dispensed from seeking in some degree to imitate the working of Divine Love. We can see but little of what Infinite Intelligence sees, and this should be one source of confidence and comfort, when we stumble upon perplexities produced by the seeming mixture of good and evil in the world.

9. But when we ask the questions which have already been stated: Whether this Infinite Divine Love is realized in the world, and if so, How: I conceive that we are irresistibly impelled to reply to the former question, that it is: and we then turn to the latter. We are led to assume that there is in God an Infinite Love of man, a creature in a certain degree of a Divine nature. We must, as a consequence of this, assume that the Love of God to man, necessarily is, in the end, and on the whole, completely and fully realized in the history of the world. But what is the complete history of the world! Is it that which consists in the lives of men such as we see them between their birth and their death? If the minds or souls of men are alive after the death of the body, that future life, as well as this present life, belongs to the history of the world;—to that providential history, of which the totality, as we have said, must be governed by Infinite Divine Love. And in addition to all other reasons for believing that the minds and souls of men do thus survive their present life, is this:—that we thus can conceive, what otherwise it is difficult or impossible to conceive, the operation of Infinite Love in the whole of the history of mankind. If there be a Future State in which men's souls are still under the authority and direction of the Divine Governor of the world, all that is here wanting to complete the scheme of a perfect government of Intelligent Love may thus be applied: all seeming and partial evil may be absorbed and extinguished in an ultimate and universal good.

10. The Idea of Justice as belonging to God suggests to us some of the same kind of reflexions as those which we have made respecting the Divine Love. We believe God to be just: otherwise, as has been said, He would not be God. And as we thus, from the nature of our minds and souls, believe God to be just, we must, in this belief, understand Justice according to the Idea which we have of Justice; that is, in some measure, according to the Idea of Justice, as exemplified in human actions and feelings. It would be absurd to combine the two propositions, that we necessarily believe that God is just, and that by just, we mean something entirely different from the common meaning of the word.

But though the Divine Idea of Justice must necessarily, in some measure, coincide with our Idea of Justice, we must believe in this, as in other cases, that the Divine Idea is immeasurably more profound, comprehensive, and clear, than the human Idea. Even the human Idea of Justice is susceptible of many and large progressive steps, in the way of clearness, consistency, and comprehensiveness. In the moral history of man this Idea advances from the hard rigour of inflexible written Law to the equitable estimation of the real circumstances of each case; it advances also from the narrow Law of a single community to a larger Law, which includes and solves the conflicts of all such Laws. Further, the administration of human Law is always imperfect, often erroneous, in consequence of man's imperfect knowledge of the facts of each case, and still more, from his ignorance of the designs and feelings of the actors. If the Judge could see into the heart of the person accused, and could himself rise higher and higher in judicial wisdom, he might exemplify the Idea of Justice in a far higher degree than has ever yet been done.

11. But all such advance in the improvement of human Justice must still be supposed to stop immeasurably short of the Divine Justice, which must include a perfect knowledge of all men's actions, and all men's hearts and thoughts; and a universal application of the wisest and most comprehensive Laws. And the difference of the Divine and of the human Idea of Justice may, like the differences of other Divine and human Ideas, include the solution of all the perplexities in which we find ourselves involved when we would trace the Idea to all its consequences. The Divine Idea is immeasurably elevated above the human Idea; in the Divine Idea all inconsistency, defect, and incompleteness vanish, and Justice includes in its administration every man, without any admixture of injustice. This is what we must conceive of the Divine administration, since God is perfectly just.

12. But here, as before, we have another conclusion suggested to us. We are, by the considerations just now spoken of, led to believe that, in the Divine administration of the world is an administration of perfect Justice;—that is, such is the Divine Administration in the end and on the whole, taking into account the whole of the providential history of the world. But the course of the world, taking into account only what happens to man in this present life, is not, we may venture to say, a complete and entire administration of justice. It often happens that injustice is successful and triumphant, even in the end, so far as the end is seen here. It happens that wrong is done, and is not remedied or punished. It happens that blameless and virtuous men are subjected to pain, grief, violence, and oppression, and are not protected, extricated, or avenged. In the affairs of this world, the prevalence of injustice and wrong-doing is so apparent, as to be a common subject of complaint: and though the complaint may be exaggerated, and though a calm and comprehensive view may often discern compensating and remedial influences which are not visible at first sight, still we cannot regard the lot of happiness or misery which falls to each man in this world and this life as apportioned according to a scheme of perfect and universal justice, such as in our thoughts we cannot but require the Divine administration to be.

13. Here then we are again led to the same conviction by regarding the Divine administration of the world as the realization of the Divine Justice, to which we were before led by regarding it as the realization of the Divine Love. Since the Idea is not fully or completely realized in man's life in this present world, this present world cannot be the whole of the Divine Administration. To complete the realization of the Idea of Justice, as an element of the Divine Administration, there must be a life of man after his life in this present world. If man's mind and soul, the part of him which is susceptible of happiness and misery, survive this present life, and be still subject to the Divine Administration, the Idea of Divine Justice may still be completely realized, notwithstanding all that here looks like injustice or defective justice; and it belongs to the Idea of Justice to remedy and compensate, not to prevent wrong. And thus by this supposition of a Future State of man's existence, we are enabled to conceive that, in the whole of the Divine Government of the universe, all seeming injustice and wrong may be finally corrected and rectified, in an ultimate and universal establishment of a reign of perfect Righteousness.