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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the
+Origin of Evil, by E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil
+
+Author: E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
+
+Release Date: August, 2005  [EBook #8654]
+Posting Date: July 28, 2009
+Last Updated: November 2, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FALLEN STAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Deley
+
+
+
+
+
+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
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
+
+RELIGION, says Noah Webster in his _American Dictionary of the English
+Language_, is derived from “Religo, to bind anew;” and, in this _History
+of a False Religion_, our author has shown how easily its votaries were
+insnared, deceived, and mentally bound in a labyrinth of falsehood and
+error, by a designing knave, who established a new religion and a new
+order of priesthood by imposing on their ignorance and credulity.
+
+The history of the origin of one supernatural religion will, with slight
+alterations, serve to describe them all. Their claim to credence rests
+on the exhibition of so-called miracles--that is, on a violation of
+the laws of nature,--for, if religions were founded on the demonstrated
+truths of science, there would be no mystery, no supernaturalism, no
+miracles, no skepticism, no false religion. We would have only verified
+truths and demonstrated facts for the basis of our belief. But this
+simple foundation does not satisfy the unreasoning multitude. They
+demand signs, portents, mysteries, wonders and miracles for their faith
+and the supply of prophets, knaves and impostors has always been found
+ample to satisfy this abnormal demand of credulity.
+
+Designing men, even at the present day, find little difficulty in
+establishing new systems of faith and belief. Joseph Smith, who invented
+the Mormon religion, had more followers and influence in this country
+at his death, than the Carpenter’s Son obtained centuries ago from the
+unlettered inhabitants of Palestine; and yet Smith achieved his success
+among educated people in this so-called enlightened age, while Jesus
+taught in an age of semi-barbarism and faith, when both Jews and Pagans
+asserted and believed that beasts, birds, reptiles and even fishes
+understood human language, were often gifted with human speech, and
+sometimes seemed to possess even more than ordinary human intelligence.
+
+They taught that the serpent, using the language of sophistry, beguiled
+Eve in Eden, who in turn corrupted Adam, her first and only husband. At
+the baptism of Jesus by John in the river Jordan, the voice of a dove
+resounded in the heavens, saying, quite audibly and distinctly, “Thou
+art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” Balaam disputed with
+his patient beast of burden, on their celebrated journey in the land
+of Moab, and the ass proved wiser in the argument that ensued than the
+inspired prophet who bestrode him, The great fish Oannes left his
+native element and taught philosophy to the Chaldeans on dry land.
+One reputable woman, of Jewish lineage,--the mother of an interesting
+family--was changed to a pillar of salt in Sodom while another female of
+great notoriety known to fame as the celebrated “Witch of Endor,” raised
+Samuel from his grave in Ramah. Saint Peter found a shilling in the
+mouth of a fish which he caught in the Sea of Galilee, and this lucky
+incident enabled the impecunious apostle to pay the “tribute money” in
+Capernaum. Another famous Israelite,--so it is said,--broke the record
+of balloon ascensions in Judea, and ascended into heaven in a chariot of
+fire.
+
+In an age of ignorance wonders abound, prodigies occur, and miracles
+become common, The untaught masses are easily deceived, and their
+unreasoning credulity enables them to proudly boast of their
+unquestioning faith. When their feelings are excited and their passions
+aroused by professional evangelists, they even profess to believe that
+which they cannot comprehend; and, in the satirical language of Bulwer,
+they endeavor to “_assist their ignorance by the conjectures of their
+superstition_.”
+
+Among the multitudes of diverse and opposing religions which afflict
+mankind, it is self-evident that but one religion may justly claim the
+inspiration of truth, and it is equally evident to all reasoning minds
+that that religion is the religion of kindness and humanity,--the
+religion of noble thoughts and generous deeds,--which removes the
+enmities of race and creed, and “makes the whole world kin!” And which,
+in its observance is blessed with sympathy, friendship, happiness and
+love.
+
+This religion needs no creed, no profession of faith, no incense, no
+prayer, no penance, no sacrifice. Its whole duty consists in comforting
+the afflicted, assisting the unfortunate, protecting the helpless, and
+in honestly fulfilling our duties to our fellow mortals. In the language
+of Confucius, the ancient Chinese Sage, it is simply “to behave to
+others as I would require others to behave to me.”
+
+“Do unto others as you would they should do unto you,” says Jesus; and
+in the Epistle of James, we are told that “Pure Religion and undefiled
+before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in
+their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
+
+The same benign and generous conduct is commended in even grander and
+nobler language in the lectures to the French Masonic Lodges: “Love one
+another, teach one another, help one another. That is all our doctrine,
+all our science, all our law.”
+
+It is believed that the learned dissertation of Lord Brougham on
+the _Origin of Evil_, which is annexed to this work, will need no
+commendation to ensure its careful perusal.
+
+                         PETER ECKLER.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FALLEN STAR, or, THE HISTORY OF A FALSE RELIGION
+
+by E. L. Bulwer
+
+
+
+
+AN ALLEGORY OF THE STARS.
+
+And the Stars sat, each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless
+eyes upon the world. It was the night ushering in the new year, a night
+on which every star receives from the archangel that then visits the
+universal galaxy, its peculiar charge.
+
+The destinies of men and empires are then portioned forth for the coming
+year, and, unconsciously to ourselves, our fates become minioned to the
+stars.
+
+A hushed and solemn night is that in which the dark gates of time
+open to receive the ghost of the dead year, and the young and radiant
+stranger rushes forth from the clouded chasms of eternity. On that
+night, it is said that there are given to the spirits that we see not, a
+privilege and a power; the dead are troubled in their forgotten graves,
+and men feast and laugh, while demon and angel are contending for their
+doom.
+
+It was night in heaven; all was unutterably silent, the music of the
+spheres had paused, and not a sound came from the angels of the stars;
+and they who sat upon those shining thrones were three thousand and ten,
+each resembling each.
+
+Eternal youth clothed their radiant limbs with celestial beauty, and on
+their faces was written the dread of calm, that fearful stillness which
+feels not, sympathizes not with the dooms over which it broods.
+
+War, tempest, pestilence, the rise of empires, and their fall, they
+ordain, they, compass, unexultant and uncompassionate. The fell and
+thrilling crimes that stalk abroad when the world sleeps--the parricide
+with his stealthy step, and horrent brow, and lifted knife; the unwifed
+mother that glides out and looks behind, and behind, and shudders, and
+casts her babe upon the river, and hears the wail, and pities not--the
+splash, and does not tremble!
+
+These the starred kings behold--to these they lead the unconscious step;
+but the guilt blanches not their lustre, neither doth remorse wither
+their unwrinkled youth.
+
+Each star wore a kingly diadem; round the loins of each was a graven
+belt, graven with many and mighty signs; and the foot of each was on a
+burning ball, and the right arm dropped over the knee as they bent down
+from their thrones; they moved not a limb or feature, save the finger
+of the right hand, which ever and anon moved slowly, pointing, and
+regulated the fates of men as the hand of the dial speaks the career of
+time.
+
+One only of the three thousand and ten wore not the same aspect as his
+crowned brethren; a star, smaller than the rest, and less luminous. The
+countenance of this star was not impressed with the awful calmness of
+the others; but there were sullenness and discontent upon his mighty
+brow.
+
+And this star said to himself--“Behold, I am created less glorious
+than my fellows, and the archangel apportions not to me the same lordly
+destinies. Not for me are the dooms of kings and bards, the rulers of
+empires, or, yet nobler, the swayers and harmonists of souls. Sluggish
+are the spirits and base the lot of the men I am ordained to lead
+through a dull life to a fameless grave. And wherefore?--Is it mine own
+fault, or is it the fault which is not mine, that I was woven of beams
+less glorious than my brethren? Lo! when the archangel comes, I will
+bow not my crowned head to his decrees. I will speak, as the ancestral
+Lucifer before me: _he_ rebelled because of his glory, _I_ because of
+my obscurity; _he_ from the ambition of pride, and _I_ from its
+discontent.”
+
+And while the star was thus communing with himself, the upward heavens
+were parted as by a long river of light, and adown that stream swiftly,
+and without sound, sped the archangel visitor of the stars; his vast
+limbs floated in the liquid lustre, and his outspread wings, each plume
+the glory of a sun, bore him noiselessly along; but thick clouds veiled
+his lustre from the eyes of mortals, and while above all was bathed in
+the serenity of his splendor, tempest and storm broke below over the
+children of the earth:
+
+“He bowed the heavens and came down, and darkness was under his feet.”
+
+And the stillness on the faces of the stars became yet more still, and
+the awfulness was humbled into awe. Right above their thrones paused
+the course of the archangel; and his wings stretched from east to west,
+overshadowing with the shadow of light the immensity of space. Then
+forth in the shining stillness, rolled the dread music of his voice:
+and, fulfilling the heraldry of god, to each star he appointed the duty
+and the charge, and each star bowed his head yet lower as he heard the
+fiat, while his throne rocked and trembled at the majesty of the
+word. But at last, when each of the brighter stars had, in succession,
+received the mandate, and the viceroyalty over the nations of the earth,
+the purple and diadems of kings--the archangel addressed the lesser star
+as he sat apart from his fellows.
+
+“Behold,” said the archangel, “the rude tribes of the north, the
+fishermen of the river that flows beneath, and the hunters of the
+forests, that darken the mountain-tops with verdure! these be thy
+charge, and their destinies thy care. Nor deem thou, O star of the
+sullen beams, that thy duties are less glorious than the duties of thy
+brethren; for the peasant is not less to thy master and mine than the
+monarch; nor doth the doom of empires rest more upon the sovereign than
+on the herd. The passions and the heart are the dominion of the stars--a
+mighty realm; nor less mighty beneath the hide that garbs the shepherd,
+than the jewelled robes of eastern kings.”
+
+Then the star lifted his pale front from his breast, and answered the
+archangel:
+
+“Lo!” he said, “ages have past, and each year thou hast appointed me to
+the same ignoble charge. Release me, I pray thee, from the duties that I
+scorn; or, if thou wilt that the lowlier race of men be my charge, give
+unto me the charge not of many, but of one, and suffer me to breathe
+into him the desire that spurns the valleys of life, and ascends its
+steeps. If the humble are given to me, let there be amongst them one
+whom I may lead on the mission that shall abase the proud; for, behold,
+O Appointer of the Stars, as I have sat for uncounted years upon my
+solitary throne, brooding over the things beneath, my spirit hath
+gathered wisdom from the changes that shift below. Looking upon the
+tribes of earth, I have seen how the multitude are swayed, and tracked
+the steps that lead weakness into power; and fain would I be the ruler
+of one who, if abased, shall aspire to rule.”
+
+As a sudden cloud over the face of noon was the change on the brow of
+the archangel.
+
+“Proud and melancholy star,” said the herald, “thy wish would war with
+the courses of the invisible destiny, that, throned far above, sways
+and harmonizes all; the source from which the lesser rivers of fate are
+eternally gushing through the heart of the universe of things. Thinkest
+thou that thy wisdom, of itself, can lead the peasant to become a king?”
+
+And the crowned star gazed undauntedly on the face of the archangel, and
+answered:
+
+“Yea!--grant me but one trial!”
+
+Ere the archangel could reply, the farthest centre of the heaven was
+rent as by a thunderbolt; and the divine herald covered his face with
+his hands, and a voice low and sweet, and mild with the consciousness of
+unquestionable power, spoke forth to the repining star:
+
+“The time has arrived when thou mayest have thy wish. Below thee, upon
+yon solitary plain, sits a mortal, gloomy as thyself, who, born under
+thy influence, may be moulded to thy will.”
+
+The voice ceased, as the voice of a dream. Silence was over the seas of
+space, and the archangel, once more borne aloft, slowly soared away into
+the farther heaven, to promulgate the divine bidding to the stars of
+far-distant worlds.
+
+But the soul of the discontented star exulted within itself; and it
+said, “I will call forth a king from the valley of the herdsmen, that
+shall trample on the kings subject to my fellows, and render the charge
+of the contemned star more glorious than the minions of its favored
+brethren; thus shall I revenge neglect--thus shall I prove my claim
+hereafter to the heritage of the great of earth!”
+
+
+At that time, though the world had rolled on for ages, and the
+pilgrimage of man had passed through various states of existence, which
+our dim traditionary knowledge has not preserved, yet the condition of
+our race in the northern hemisphere was then what _we_, in our imperfect
+lore, have conceived to be among the earliest.
+
+
+
+
+FORMING A NEW RELIGION.
+
+By a rude and vast pile of stones, the masonry of arts forgotten, a
+lonely man sat at midnight, gazing upon the heavens. A storm had just
+passed from the earth--the clouds had rolled away, and the high stars
+looked down upon the rapid waters of the Rhine; and no sound save the
+roar of the waves and the dripping of the rain from the mighty trees,
+was heard around the ruined pile: the white sheep lay scattered on the
+plain, and slumber with them. He sat watching over the herd, lest the
+foes of a neighboring tribe seized them unawares, and thus he communed
+with himself:
+
+“The king sits upon his throne, and is honored by a warrior race, and
+the warrior exults in the trophies he has won; the step of the huntsman
+is bold upon the mountain-top, and his name is sung at night round the
+pine-fires, by the lips of the bard; and the bard himself hath honor in
+the hail. But I, who belong not to the race of kings, and whose limbs
+can bound not to the rapture of war, nor scale the eyries of the eagle
+and the haunts of the swift stag; whose hand cannot string the harp, and
+whose voice is harsh in the song; _I_ have neither honor nor command,
+and men bow not the head as I pass along; yet do I feel within me the
+consciousness of a great power that should rule my species--not obey.
+My eye pierces the secret hearts of men--I see their thoughts ere their
+lips proclaim them; and I scorn, while I see, the weakness and the vices
+which I never shared. I laugh at the madness of the warrior--I mock
+within my soul at the tyranny of kings. Surely there is something in
+man’s nature more fitted to command--more worthy of renoun, than the
+sinews of the arm, or the swiftness of the feet, or the accident of
+birth!”
+
+As Morven, the son of Osslah, thus mused within himself, still looking
+at the heavens, the solitary man beheld a star suddenly shooting from
+its place, and speeding through the silent air, till it as suddenly
+paused right over the midnight river, and facing the inmate of the pile
+of stones.
+
+As he gazed upon the star strange thoughts grew slowly over him. He
+drank, as it were, from its solemn aspect, the spirit of a great design.
+A dark cloud rapidly passing over the earth, snatched the star from his
+sight; but left to his awakened mind the thoughts and the dim scheme
+that had come to him as he gazed.
+
+When the sun arose one of his brethren relieved him of his charge over
+the herd, and he went away, but not to his father’s home. Musingly he
+plunged into the dark and leafless recesses of the winter forest; and
+shaped out of his wild thoughts, more palpably and clearly, the outline
+of his daring hope.
+
+While thus absorbed, he heard a great noise in the forest, and, fearful
+lest the hostile tribe of the Alrich might pass that way, he ascended
+one of the loftiest pine-trees, to whose perpetual verdure the winter
+had not denied the shelter he sought, and, concealed by its branches, he
+looked anxiously forth in the direction whence the noise had proceed.
+
+And IT came--it came with a tramp and a crash, and a crushing tread upon
+the crunched boughs and matted leaves that strewed the soil--it came--it
+came, the monster that the world now holds no more--the mighty mammoth
+of the North!
+
+Slowly it moved in its huge strength along, and its burning eyes
+glittered through the gloomy shade: its jaws, falling apart, showed the
+grinders with which it snapped asunder the young oaks of the forest;
+and the vast tusks, which, curved downward to the midst of its massive
+limbs, glistened white and ghastly, curdling the blood of one destined
+hereafter to be the dreaded ruler of the men of that distant age.
+
+The livid eyes of the monster fastened on the form of the herdsman,
+even amidst the thick darkness of the pine. It paused--it glared upon
+him--its jaws opened, and a low deep sound, as of gathering thunder,
+seemed to the son of Osslah as the knell of a dreadful grave. But after
+glaring on him for some moments, it again, and calmly, pursued its
+terrible way, crashing the boughs as it marched along, till the last
+sound of its heavy tread died away upon his ear.
+
+Ere yet, however, before Morven had summoned the courage to descend the
+tree, he saw the shining of arms through the bare branches of the wood,
+and presently a small hand of the hostile Alrich came into sight. He was
+perfectly hidden from them; and, listening as they passed him, he heard
+one say to another:
+
+“The night covers all things; why attack them by day?”
+
+And he who seemed the chief of the band, answered “Right. To-night, when
+they sleep in their city, we will upon them. Lo! they will be drenched
+in wine, and fall like sheep into our hands.”
+
+“But where, O chief,” said a third of the band, “shall our men hide
+during the day? for there are many hunters among the youth of the
+Oestrich tribe, and they might see us in the forest unawares, and arm
+their race against our coming.”
+
+“I have prepared for that,” answered the chief. “Is not the dark
+cavern of Oderlin at hand? Will it not shelter us from the eyes of the
+victims?”
+
+Then the men laughed, and shouting, they went their way adown the
+forest.
+
+When they were gone Morven cautiously descended, and, striking into a
+broad path, hastened to a vale that lay between the forest and the river
+in which was the city where the chief of his country dwelt.
+
+As he passed by the warlike men, giants in that day, who thronged the
+streets (if streets they might be called), their half garments parting
+from their huge limbs, the quiver at their backs, and the hunting spears
+in their hands, they laughed and shouted out, and, pointing to him,
+cried:
+
+“Morven, the woman! Morven, the cripple! what dost thou among men?”
+
+For the son of Osslah was small in stature and of slender strength, and
+his step had halted from his birth; but he passed through the warriors
+unheedingly.
+
+At the outskirts of the city he came upon a tail pile, in which some old
+men dwelt by themselves, and counseled the king when times of danger,
+or when the failure of the season, the famine, or the drought, perplexed
+the ruler, and clouded the savage fronts of his warrior tribe.
+
+They gave the counsels of experience, and when experience failed, they
+drew, in their believing ignorance, assurances and omens from the winds
+of heaven, the changes of the moon, and the flights of the wandering
+birds. Filled (by the voices of the elements, and the variety of
+mysteries which ever shift along the face of things, unsolved by the
+wonder which pauses not, the fear which believes, and that eternal
+reasoning of all experience, which assigns causes to effects) with
+the notion of superior powers, _they assisted their ignorance by the
+conjectures of their superstition_. But as yet they knew no craft
+and practiced no _voluntary_ delusion; they trembled too much at the
+mysteries, which had created their faith, to seek to belie them. They
+counselled as they believed, and the bold dream had never dared to cross
+men thus worn and grey with age, of governing their warriors and their
+kings by the wisdom of deceit.
+
+The son of Osslah entered the vast pile with a fearless step, and
+approached the place at the upper end of the hall, where the old men sat
+in conclave.
+
+“How, base-torn and craven limbed!” cried the eldest, who had been
+a noted warrior in his day; “darest thou enter unsummoned amidst the
+secret councils of the wise men? Knowest thou not, scatterling! that the
+penalty is death?”
+
+“Slay me, if thou wilt,” answered Morven “but hear!
+
+“As I sat last night in the ruined palace of our ancient kings, tending,
+as my father bade me, the sheep that grazed around, lest the fierce
+tribe of Alrich should descend unseen from the mountains upon the herd,
+a storm came darkly on; and when the storm, had ceased and I looked
+above on the sky, I saw a star descend from its height towards me, and
+a voice from the star said, ‘Son of Osslah, leave thy herd and seek the
+council of the wise men, and say unto them, that they take thee as one
+of their number, or that sudden will be the destruction of them, and
+theirs.’
+
+“But I had courage to answer the voice, and I said, ‘Mock not the poor
+son of the herdsman. Behold they will kill me if I utter so rash a word,
+for I am poor and valueless in the eyes of the tribe of Oestrich, and
+the great in deeds and the grey of hair alone sit in the council of the
+wise men.’
+
+“Then the voice said, ‘Do my bidding, and I will give thee a token that
+thou comest from the powers that sway the seasons and sail upon the
+eagles of the winds. Say unto the wise men that this very night if they
+refuse to receive thee of their band, evil shall fall upon them, and the
+morrow shall dawn in blood.’
+
+“Then the voice ceased, and a cloud passed over the star; and I communed
+with myself, and came, O dread fathers, mournfully unto you. For I
+feared that ye would smite me because of my bold tongue, and that ye
+would, sentence me to the death, in that I asked what may scarce be
+given even to the sons of kings.”
+
+Then the grim elders looked one at the other and marvelled much, nor
+knew they what answer they should make to the herdsman’s son.
+
+At length one of the wise men said, “Surely there must be truth in the
+son of Osslah, for he would not dare to falsify the great lights of
+heaven. If he had given unto men the words of the star, verily we
+might doubt the truth. But who would brave the vengeance of the gods of
+night?”
+
+Then the elders shook their heads approvingly; but one answered and
+said:
+
+“Shall we take the herdsman’s son as our equal? No!”
+
+The name of the man who thus answered was Darvan, and his words were
+pleasing to the elders.
+
+But Morven spoke out:
+
+“Of a truth, O councilors of kings! I look not to be an equal with
+yourselves. Enough if I tend the gates of your palace, and serve you as
+the son of Osslah may serve;” and he bowed his head humbly as he spoke.
+
+Then said the chief of the elders, for he was wiser than the others,
+“But how wilt thou deliver us from the evil that is to come? Doubtless
+the star hath informed thee of the service thou canst render to us if we
+take thee into our palace, as well as the ill that will fall on us if we
+refuse.”
+
+Morven answered meekly: “Surely, if thou acceptest thy servant, the star
+will teach him that which may requite thee; but as yet he knows only
+what he has uttered.”
+
+Then the sages bade him withdraw, and they communed with themselves and
+they differed much; but though fierce men and bold at the war cry of a
+human foe, they shuddered at the prophecy of a star. So they resolved
+to take the son of Osslah, and suffer him to keep the gate of the
+council-hall.
+
+He heard their decree and towed his head, and went to the gate, and sat
+down by it in silence.
+
+And the sun went down in the west, and the first stats of the twilight
+began to glimmer, when Morven started front his seat, and a trembling
+appeared to seize his limbs. His lips foamed; an agony and a fear
+possessed him; he writhed as a man whom the spear of a foeman has
+pierced with a mortal wound, and suddenly fell upon his face on the
+stony earth.
+
+
+The elders approached him; wondering, they lifted him up. He slowly
+recovered as from a swoon; his eyes rolled wildly.
+
+“Heard ye not the voice of the star?” he said.
+
+And the chief of the elders answered, “Nay, we heard no sound.”
+
+Then Morven sighed heavily.
+
+“To me only the word was given. Summon instantly, O councilors of the
+king! summon the armed men, and all the youth of the tribe, and let them
+take the sword and the spear, and follow thy servant. For lo! the star
+hath announced to him that the foe shall fall into our hands as the wild
+beast of the forests.”
+
+The son of Osslah spoke with the voice of command, and the elders were
+amazed.
+
+“Why, pause ye?” he cried. “Do the gods of the night lie? On my head
+rest the peril if I deceive ye.”
+
+Then the elders communed together; and they went forth and summoned the
+men of arms, and all the young of the tribe; and each man took the sword
+and the spear, and Morven also. And the son of Osslah walked first,
+still looking up at the star; and he motioned them to be silent, and
+move with a stealthy step.
+
+So they went through the thickest of the forest, till they came to the
+mouth of a great cave, overgrown with aged and matted trees, and it was
+called the cave of Oderlin; and he bade the leaders place the armed men
+on either side the cave, to the right and to the left, among the hushes.
+
+So they watched silently till the night deepened, when they heard a
+noise in the cave and the sound of feet, and forth came an armed man;
+and the spear of Morven pierced him, and he fell dead at the mouth of
+the cave. Another and another, and both fell! Then loud and long was
+heard the warcry of Alrich, and forth poured, as a stream over a narrow
+bed, the river of armed men.
+
+And the Sons of Oestrich fell upon them, and the foe were sorely
+perplexed and terrified by the suddenness of the battle and the darkness
+of the night; and there was a great slaughter.
+
+And when the morning came, the children of Oestrich counted the slain,
+and found the leader of Alrich and the chief men of the tribe amongst
+them, and great was the joy thereof.
+
+So they went back in triumph to the city, and they carded the brave son
+of Osslah on their shoulders, and shouted forth, “Glory to the servant
+of the star.”
+
+And Morven dwelt in the council of the wise men.
+
+
+Now the king of the tribe had one daughter, and she was stately amongst
+the women of the tribe, and fair to look upon. And Morven gazed upon her
+with the eyes of love, but he did not dare to speak.
+
+Now the son of Osslah laughed secretly at the foolishness of men; he
+loved them not, for they had mocked him; he honored them not, for he had
+blinded the wisest of their elders.
+
+He shunned their feasts and merriment and lived apart and solitary.
+
+The austerity of his life increased the mysterious homage which his
+commune with the stars had won him, and the boldest of the warriors
+bowed his head to the favorite of the gods.
+
+One day he was wandering by the side of the river, and he saw a large
+bird of prey rise from the earth, and give chase to a hawk that had not
+yet gained the full strength of its wings. From his youth the solitary
+Morven had loved to watch, in the great forests and by the banks of the
+mighty stream, the habits of the things which nature had submitted to
+man; and looking now on the birds, he said to himself, “Thus is it ever;
+by cunning or by strength each thing wishes to master its kind.”
+
+While thus, moralizing, the larger bird had stricken down the hawk, and
+it fell terrified and panting at his feet.
+
+Morven took the hawk in his hands, and the vulture shrieked above him,
+wheeling nearer and nearer to its protected prey; but Morven scared away
+the vulture, and placing the hawk in his bosom, he carried it home, and
+tended it carefully, and fed it from his hand until it had regained its
+strength; and the hawk knew him, and followed him as a dog.
+
+And Morven said, smiling to himself, “Behold, _the credulous fools
+around me put faith in the flight and motions of birds_. I will teach
+this poor hawk to minister to my ends.”
+
+So he tamed the bird, and tutored it according to its nature; but he
+concealed it carefully from others, and cherished it in secret.
+
+The king of the country was old and like to die, and the eyes of the
+tribe were turned to his two sons, nor knew they which was the worthier
+to reign.
+
+And Morven passing through the forest one evening, saw the younger of
+the two, who was a great hunter, sitting mournfully under an oak, and
+looking with musing eyes upon the ground.
+
+“Wherefore musest thou, O swift footed Siror?” said the son of Osslah;
+“and wherefore art thou sad?”
+
+“Thou canst not assist me,” answered the prince, sternly; “take thy
+way.”
+
+“Nay,” answered Morven, “thou knowest not what thou sayest; am I not the
+favorite of the stars?”
+
+“Away, I am no graybeard whom the approach of death makes doting: talk
+not to inc of the stars; I know only the things that my eye sees and my
+ear drinks in.”
+
+“Hush,” said Morven, solemnly, and covering his face; “hush! lest the
+heavens avenge thy rashness. But, behold, the stars have given unto me
+to pierce the secret hearts of others; and I can tell thee the thoughts
+of thine.”
+
+“Speak out, base-born!”
+
+“Thou art the younger of two, and thy name is less known in war than the
+name of thy brother; yet wouldst thou desire to be set over his head,
+and to sit at the high seat of thy father?”
+
+The young man turned pale.
+
+“Thou hast truth in thy lips,” said he, with a faltering voice.
+
+“Not from me, but from the stars, descends the truth.”
+
+“Can the stars grant my wish?”
+
+“They can; let us meet to-morrow.” Thus saying, Morven passed into the
+forest.
+
+The next day, at noon, they met again.
+
+“I have consulted the gods of night, and they have given me the power
+that I prayed for, but on one condition.”
+
+“Name it.”
+
+“That thou sacrifice thy sister on their altars thou must build up a
+heap of stones, and take thy sister into the wood, and lay her on the
+pile, and plunge thy sword into her heart; so only shalt then reign.”
+
+The prince shuddered, and started to his feet, and shook his spear at
+the pale front of Morven.
+
+“Tremble,” said the son of Osslah, with a loud voice. “Hark to the gods,
+who threaten thee with death, that thou hast dared to lift thine arm
+against their servant!”
+
+As he spoke, the thunder rolled above; for one of the frequent storms of
+the early summer was about to break.
+
+The spear dropped from the prince’s hand; he sat down and cast his eyes
+on the ground.
+
+“Wilt thou do the bidding of the stars, and reign?” said Morven.
+
+“I will!” cried Siror, with a desperate voice.
+
+“This evening, then, when the sun sets, thou wilt lead her hither,
+alone; I may not attend thee. Now, let us pile the stones.”
+
+Silently the huntsman bent his vast strength to the fragments of rock
+that Morven pointed to him, and they built the altar, and went their
+way.
+
+
+And beautiful is the dying of the great sum when the last song of the
+birds fades into the lap of silence; when the islands of the cloud are
+bathed in light, and the first star springs up over the grave of day.
+
+
+“Whither leadest thou my steps, my brother?” said Gina; “and why doth
+thy lip quiver? and why dost thou tarn away thy face?”
+
+“Is not the forest beautiful; doth it not tempt us forth, my sister?”
+
+“And wherefore are those heaps of stone piled together?”
+
+“Let others answer; _I_ piled them not.”
+
+“Thou tremblest brother: we will return.”
+
+“Not so; by those stones is a bird that my shaft pierced to-day; a bird
+of beautiful plumage that I slew for thee.”
+
+“We are by the pile: where hast thou laid the bird?”
+
+“Here!” cried Siror; and he seized the maiden in his arms, and, casting
+her on the rude altar, he drew forth his sword to smite her to the
+heart.
+
+Right over the stones rose a giant oak, the growth of immemorial ages;
+and from the oak, or from the heavens; broke forth a loud and solemn
+voice:
+
+“Strike not, son of kings! the stars forbear their own: the maiden thou
+shalt not slay; yet shalt thou reign over the race of Oestrich; and thou
+shall give Orna as a bride to the favorite of the stars. Arise, and go
+thy way!”
+
+The voice ceased: the terror of Orna had overpowered for a time the
+springs of life; and Siror bore her home through the wood in his strong
+arms.
+
+
+“Alas!” said Morven, when, at the next day, he again met the aspiring
+prince; “alas! the stars have ordained me a lot which my heart desires
+not; for I, lonely of life, and crippled of shape, am insensible to the
+fires of love; and ever, as thou and thy tribe know, I have shunned the
+eyes of women, for the maidens laughed at my halting step and my sullen
+features; and so in my youth I learned betimes to banish all thoughts
+of love. But since they told me (as they declared to _thee_), that only
+through that marriage, thou, O beloved prince! canst obtain thy fatter’s
+plumed crown, I yield me to their will.”
+
+“But,” said the prince, “not until I am king can I give thee my sister
+in marriage; for thou knowest that my sire would smite me to the dust,
+if I asked him to give the flower of our race to the son of the herdsman
+Osslah.”
+
+“Thou speakest the words of truth. Go home and fear not: but, when thou
+art king, the sacrifice must be made, and Orna mine. Alas! how can
+I dare to lift my eyes to her! But so ordain the dread kings of the
+night!--Who shall gainsay their word?”
+
+“The day that sees me king, sees Orna thine,” answered the prince.
+
+Morven walked forth, as was his wont, alone; and he said to himself,
+“the king is old, yet may he live long between me and mine hope!” and he
+began to cast in his mind how he might shorten the time.
+
+Thus absorbed, he wandered on so unheedingly, that night advanced, and
+he had lost his path among the thick woods, and knew not how to regain
+his home; so he lay down quietly beneath a tree, and rested till day
+dawned.
+
+Then hunger came upon him and he searched among the bushes for such
+simple roots as those with which, for he was ever careless of food, he
+was used to appease the cravings of nature.
+
+He found, among other more familiar herbs and roots, a red berry of
+a sweetish taste, which he had never observed before. He ate of it
+sparingly, and had not proceeded far in the wood before he found his
+eyes swim, and a deadly sickness come over him. For several hours he lay
+convulsed on the ground expecting death; but the gaunt spareness of his
+frame, and his unvarying abstinence, prevailed over the poison, and he
+recovered slowly, and after great anguish: but he went with feeble steps
+back to the spot where the berries grew, and, plucking several, hid them
+in his bosom, and by nightfall regained the city.
+
+The next day he went forth among his father’s herds, and seizing a lamb,
+forced some of the berries into its stomach, and the lamb, escaping, ran
+away, and fell down dead. Then Morven took some more of the berries and
+boiled them down, and mixed the juice with wine, and he gave the wine in
+secret to one of his father’s servants, and the servant died.
+
+Then Morven sought the king, and coming into his presence alone, he said
+unto him, “How fares my lord?”
+
+The king sat on a couch, made of the skins of wolves, and his eye was
+glassy and dim; but vast were his aged limbs and huge was his stature,
+and he had been taller by a head than the children of men, and none
+living could bend the bow he had bent in youth. Grey, gaunt and worn, as
+some mighty bones that are dug at times from the bosom of the earth--a
+relic of the strength of old.
+
+And the king said, faintly, and with a ghastly laugh:
+
+“The men of my years fare ill. What avails my strength? Better had I
+been born a cripple like thee, so should I have had nothing to lament in
+growing old.”
+
+The red flash passed over Morven’s brow; but he bent humbly--
+
+“O king, what if I could give thee back thy youth? What if I could
+restore to thee the vigor which distinguished thee above the sons of
+men, when the warriors of Alrich fell like grass before thy sword?”
+
+Then the king uplifted his dull eyes, and he said:
+
+“What meanest thou, son of Osslah? Surely I hear much of thy great
+wisdom, and how thou speakest nightly with the stars. Can the gods of
+the night give unto thee the secret to make the old young?”
+
+“Tempt them not by doubt,” said Morven, reverently. “All things are
+possible to the rulers of the dark hour; and, lo! the star that loves
+thy servant spake to him at the dead of night, and said, ‘Arise, and go
+unto the king; and tell him that the stars honor the tribe of Oestrich,
+and remember how the king bent his bow against the Sons of Alrich;
+wherefore, look thou under the stone that lies to the right of thy
+dwelling--even beside the pine-tree, and thou shalt see a vessel of
+clay, and in the vessel thou wilt find a sweet liquid, that shall make
+the king thy master forget his age forever.’
+
+“Therefore, my lord, when the morning rose I went forth, and looked
+under the stone, and behold the vessel of clay; and I have brought it
+hither to my lord, the king.”
+
+“Quick--slave--quick! that I may drink and regain my youth!”
+
+“Nay, listen, O king! farther said the star to me:
+
+“‘It is only at night, when the stars have power, that this their gift
+will avail; wherefore, the king must wait till the hush of the midnight,
+when the moon is high, and then may he mingle the liquid with his wine.
+
+“‘And he must reveal to none that he hath received the gift from the
+hand of the servant of the stars. For THEY do their work in secret, and
+when men sleep; therefore they love not the babble of mouths, and he who
+reveals their benefits shall surely die.’”
+
+“Fear not,” said the king, grasping the vessel; “none shall know: and,
+behold, I will rise on the morrow; and my two sons--wrangling for my
+crown--verily, I shall be younger than they!”
+
+Then the king laughed loud; and he scarcely thanked the servant of the
+stars, neither did he promise him reward: for the kings in those days
+had little thought--save for themselves.
+
+And Morven said to him, “Shall I not attend my lord? for without me,
+perchance, the drug might fail of its effect.”
+
+“Aye,” said the king, “rest here.”
+
+“Nay,” replied Morven; “thy servants will marvel and talk much, if they
+see the son of Osslah sojourning in thy palace. So would the displeasure
+of the gods of night perchance be incurred. Suffer that the lesser door
+of the palace be unbarred, so that at the night hour, when the moon is
+midway in the heavens, I may steal unseen into thy chamber, and mix the
+liquid with thy wine.”
+
+“So be it,” said the king. “Thou art wise though thy limbs are crooked
+and curt; and the stars might have chosen a taller man.”
+
+Then the king laughed again; and Morven laughed too, but there was
+danger in the mirth of the son of Osslah.
+
+
+The night had began to wane, and the inhabitants of Oestrich were buried
+in deep sleep, when, hark! a sharp voice was heard crying out in the
+streets, “Woe, woe! Awake ye sons of Oestrich--woe!”
+
+Then forth, wild--haggard--alarmed--spear in hand, rushed the giant sons
+of the rugged tribe, and they saw a man on a height in the middle of the
+city, shrieking, “Woe!” and it was Morven, the son of Osslah!
+
+And he said unto them, as they gathered round him, “Men and warriors,
+tremble as ye hear.
+
+“The star of the west hath spoken to me and thus saith the star:
+
+“‘Evil shall fall upon the kingly house of Oestrich--yea, ere the
+morning dawns; wherefore, go thou mourning into the streets, and wake
+the inhabitants to woe!’
+
+“So I rose and did the bidding of the star.”
+
+And while Morven was yet speaking, a servant of the king’s house ran up
+to the crowd, crying loudly:
+
+“The king is dead!”
+
+So they went into the palace and found the king stark upon his couch,
+and his huge limbs all cramped and crippled by the pangs of death,
+and his hands clenched as if in menace of a foe--the foe of all living
+flesh!
+
+Then fear came on the gazers, and they looked on Morven with a deeper
+awe than the boldest warrior would have called forth: and they bore him
+back to the council-hall of the wise men, wailing and clashing their
+arms in woe, and shouting, ever and anon:
+
+“_Honor to Morven, the prophet!_”
+
+And that was the first time the word PROPHET was ever used in those
+countries.
+
+
+At noon, on the third day from the king’s death, Siror sought Morven,
+and he said:
+
+“Lo, my father is no more, and the people meet this evening at sunset
+to elect his successor, and the warriors and the young men will surely
+choose my brother, for he is more known in war. Fail me not, therefore.”
+
+“Peace, boy!” said Morven, sternly; “nor dare to question the truth of
+the gods of night.”
+
+For Morven now began to presume on his power among the people, and to
+speak as rulers speak, even to the sons of kings.
+
+And the voice silenced the fiery Siror, nor dared he to reply.
+
+“Behold,” said Morven, taking up a chaplet of colored plumes, “wear
+this on thy head, and put on a brave face--for the people like a hopeful
+spirit--and go down with thy brother to the place where the new king is
+to be chosen, and leave the rest to the stars.
+
+“But, above all things, forget not that chaplet; it has been blessed by
+the gods of night.”
+
+The prince took the chaplet and returned home.
+
+It was evening and the warriors and chiefs of the tribe were assembled
+in the place where the new king was to be elected.
+
+And the voices of the many favored Prince Voltoch, the brother of Siror,
+for he had slain twelve foeman with his spear; and verily, in those
+days, that was a great virtue in a king.
+
+Suddenly there was a shout in the streets, and the people cried out:
+
+“Way for Morven, the prophet, the prophet!”
+
+For the people held the son of Osslah in even greater respect than did
+the chiefs.
+
+Now, since he had become of note, Morven had assumed a majesty of air
+which the son of the herdsman knew not in his earlier days; and albeit
+his stature was short, and his limbs halted, yet his countenance was
+grave and high.
+
+He only of the tribe wore a garment that swept the ground, and his head
+was bare, and his long black hair descended to his girdle, and rarely
+was change or human passion seen in his calm aspect.
+
+He feasted not, nor drank wine, nor was his presence frequent in the
+streets.
+
+He laughed not, neither did he smile, save when alone in the forest--and
+then he laughed at the follies of his tribe.
+
+So he walked slowly through the crowd, neither turning to the left nor
+to the right, as the crowd gave way; and he supported his steps with a
+staff of the knotted pine.
+
+And when he came to the place where the chiefs were met, and the two
+princes stood in the centre, he bade the people around him proclaim
+silence.
+
+Then mounting on a huge fragment of rock, he thus spake to the
+multitude:
+
+“Princes, wantons and bards! ye, O council of the wise men! and ye, O
+hunters of the forests, and snarers of the fishes of the streams! harken
+to Morven, the son of Osslah.
+
+“Ye know that I am lowly of race, and weak of limb; but did I not give
+into your hands the tribe of Alrich, and did ye not slay them in the
+dead of night with a great slaughter?
+
+“Surely, ye must know that this of himself did not the herdsman’s son;
+surely he was but the agent of the bright gods that love the children of
+Oestrich.
+
+“Three nights since, when slumber was on the earth, was not my voice
+heard in the streets?
+
+“Did I not proclaim woe to the kingly house of Oestrich? and verily the
+dark arm had fallen on the bosom of the mighty, that is no more.
+
+“Could I have dreamed this thing merely in a dream, or was I not as the
+voice of the bright gods that watch over the tribes of Oestrich?
+
+“Wherefore, O men and chiefs! scorn not the son of Osslah, but listen to
+his words; for are they not the wisdom of the stars?
+
+“Behold, last night, I sat alone in the valley, and the trees were
+hushed around, and not a breath stirred; and I looked upon the star that
+counsels the son of Osslah; and I said:
+
+“‘Dread conqueror of the cloud! thou that bathest thy beauty in the
+streams and piercest the pine-boughs with thy presence; behold thy
+servant grieved because the mighty one hath passed away, and many foes
+surround the houses of my brethren; and it is well that they should have
+a king valiant and prosperous in war, the cherished of the stars.
+
+“‘Wherefore, O star! as thou gavest into our hands the warriors
+of Alrich, and didst warn us of the fall of the oak of our tribe,
+wherefore, I pray thee, give unto the people a token that they may
+choose that king whom the gods of the night prefer!’
+
+“Then a low voice sweeter than the music of the bard, stole along the
+silence.
+
+“‘Thy love for thy race is grateful to the stars of night: go then, son
+of Osslah, and seek the meeting of the chiefs and the people to choose a
+king, and tell them not to scorn thee because thou art slow to the chase
+and little known in war; for the stars give thee wisdom as a recompense
+for all.
+
+“‘Say unto the people that as the wise men of the council shape their
+lessons by the flight of birds, so by the flight of birds stall a token
+be given unto them, and they shall choose their kings.
+
+“‘For,’ said, the star of right, ‘the birds are children of the winds,
+they pass to and fro along the ocean of the air, and visit the clouds
+that are the warships of the gods.
+
+“‘And their music is but broken melodies which they gleam from the harps
+above.
+
+“‘Are they not the messengers of the storm?
+
+“‘Ere the stream chafes against the bank, and the rain descends, know ye
+not, by the wail of birds and their low circles over the earth, that the
+tempest is at hand?
+
+“‘Wherefore, wisely do ye deem that the children of the air are the fit
+interpreters between the sons of men and the lords of the world above.
+
+“‘Say then to the people and the chiefs, that they shall take, from
+among the doves that nest in the roof of the palace, a white dove, and
+they shall let it loose in the air, and verily the gods of the night
+shall deem the dove as a prayer coming from the people, and they shall
+send a messenger to grant the prayer and give to the tribes of Oestrich
+a king worthy of themselves.’
+
+“With that the star spoke no more.”
+
+Then the friends of Voltoch murmured among themselves, and they said,
+“Shall this man dictate to us who shall be king?”
+
+But the people and the warriors shouted:
+
+“Listen to the star; do we not give or deny battle according as the
+bird flies--shall we not by the same token choose him by whom the battle
+should be led?”
+
+And the thing seemed natural to them, for it was after the custom of the
+tribe.
+
+Then they took one of the doves that built in the roof of the palace,
+and they bought it to the spot where Morven stood, and he, looking up to
+the stars and muttering to himself, released the bird.
+
+There was a copse of trees a little distance from the spot, and as the
+dove ascended, a hawk suddenly rose from the copse and pursued the dove;
+and the dove was terrified, and soared circling high above the crowd,
+when, lo, the hawk, poising itself one moment on its wings, swooped with
+a sudden swoop, and, abandoning its prey, alighted on the plumed head of
+Siror.
+
+“Behold,” cried Morven in a loud voice, “behold your king!”
+
+“Hail, all hail the king!” shouted the people. “All hail the chosen of
+the stars!”
+
+Then Morven lifted his right hand, and the hawk left the prince, and
+alighted on Morven’s shoulder.
+
+“Bird of the gods!” said he, reverently, “hast thou not a secret message
+for my ear?” Then the hawk put its beak to Morven’s ear, and Morven
+bowed his head submissively; and the hawk rested with Morven from that
+moment and would not be scared away.
+
+And Morven said:
+
+“The stars have sent me this bird, that, in the day-time, when I see
+them not, we may never be without a counsellor in distress.”
+
+So Siror was made king, and Maven the son of Osslah was constrained by
+the king’s will to take Orna for his wife; and the people and the chiefs
+honored Morven, the prophet, above all the elders of the tribe.
+
+
+One day Morven said unto himself, musing, “Am I not already equal with
+the king? nay, is not the king my servant? did I not place him over the
+heads of his brothers? am I not, therefore, more fit to reign than he
+is? shall I not push him from his seat?
+
+“It is a troublesome and stormy office to reign over the wild men of
+Oestrich, to feast in the crowded hail, and to lead die warriors to the
+fray.
+
+“Surely, if I feasted not, neither went out to war, they might say,
+‘This is no king, but the cripple Morven;’ and some of the race of Siror
+might slay me secretly.
+
+“But can I not be greater far than kings, and continue to choose and
+govern them, living as now at mine own ease?
+
+“_Verily, the stars shall give me a new palace, and many subjects_.”
+
+Among the wise men was Darvan; and Morven feared him, for his eye often
+sought the movements of the son of Osslah.
+
+And Morven said “It were better to TRUST this man than to BLIND, for
+surely I want a helpmate and a friend.”
+
+So he said to the wise man as he sat alone watching the setting sun:
+
+“It seemeth to me, O Darvan! I that we ought to build a great pile in
+honor of the stars and the pile should be more glorious than all the
+palaces of the chiefs and the palaces of the king; for are not the stars
+our masters?
+
+“And thou and I should be the chief dwellers in this new palace, and we
+would serve the gods of night, and fatten their altars with the choicest
+of the herd, and the freshest of the fruits of the earth.”
+
+And Darvan said:
+
+“Thou speakest as becomes the servant of the stars. But will the people
+help to build the pile, for they are a war-like race and they love not
+toil?”
+
+And Morven answered:
+
+“_Doubtless the stars will ordain the work to be done. Fear not_.”
+
+“In truth thou art a wondrous man, thy words ever come to pass,” answered
+Darvan; “and I wish thou wouldest teach me, friend, the language of the
+stars.”
+
+“Assuredly if thou servest me thou shalt know,” answered the proud
+Morven; and Darvan was secretly wroth that the son of the herdsman
+should command the service of an elder and a chief.
+
+And when Morven returned to his wife he found her weeping much.
+
+Now she loved the son of Osslah with an exceeding love, for he was not
+savage and fierce as the men she had known, and she was proud of his
+fame among the tribe; and he took her in his arms and kissed her, and
+asked her why she wept.
+
+Then she told him that her brother, the king, had visited her and had
+spoken bitter words of Morven.
+
+“He taketh from me the affection of my people,” said Siror, “and
+blindeth them with lies. And since he hath made me king, what if he take
+my kingdom from me? Verily, a new tale of the stars might undo the old.”
+
+And the king had ordered her to keep watch on Morven’s secrecy, and to
+see whether truth was in him when he boasted of his commune with the
+Powers of Night.
+
+But Orna loved Morven better than Siror, therefore she told her husband
+all.
+
+And Morven resented the king’s ingratitude, and was troubled much, for
+a king is a powerful foe; but tie comforted Orna, and bade her dissemble
+and complain also of him to her brother, so that he might confide to her
+unsuspectingly whatsoever he might design against Morven.
+
+There was a cave by Morven’s house in which he kept the sacred hawk,
+and wherein he secretly trained and nurtured other birds against future
+need, and the door of the cave was always barred.
+
+And one day he was thus engaged when he beheld a chink in the wall, that
+he had never noted before, and the sun came playfully in; and while he
+looked he perceived the sunbeam was darkened, and presently he saw a
+human face peering in through the chink.
+
+And Morven trembled, for he knew he had been watched.
+
+
+Morven ran hastily from the cave, but the spy had disappeared among the
+trees, and Morven went straight to the chamber of Darvan and sat himself
+down.
+
+Darvan did not return home till late, and he started and turned pale
+when he saw Morven.
+
+But Morven greeted him as a brother, and bade him to a feast, which, for
+the first time, he purposed giving at the full of the moon, in honor of
+the stars.
+
+And going out of Darvan’s chamber, he returned to his wife, and bade her
+hair, and go at the dawn of day to the king, her brother, and complain
+bitterly of Morven’s treatment, and pluck the black schemes from the
+breast of the king. “For surely,” said he, “Darvan hath lied to thy
+brother, and some evil awaits me that I would fain know.”
+
+So the next morning Orna sought the king, and she said:
+
+“The herdsman’s son hath reviled me, and spoken harsh words to me; stall
+I not be avenged?”
+
+Then the king stamped his feet and shook his mighty sword.
+
+“Surely thou shalt be avenged, for I have learned from one of the elders
+that which convinceth me that the man hath lied to the people, and the
+base-born shall surely die.
+
+“Yea, the first time that he goeth alone into the forest my brother and
+I will fall upon him and smite him to the death.”
+
+And with this comfort Siror dismissed Orna.
+
+And Orna flung herself at the feet of her husband.
+
+“Fly now, O my beloved!--fly into the forests afar from my brethren, or
+surely the sword of Siror will end thy days.”
+
+Then the son of Osslab folded his arms, and seemed buried in black
+thoughts; nor did he heed the voice of Orna, until again and again she
+had implored him to fly.
+
+“Fly!” he said at length. “Nay, I was doubting what punishment the stars
+should pour down upon our foe. Let warriors fly. Morven, the prophet,
+conquers by arms mightier than the sword.”
+
+Nevertheless Morven was perplexed in his mind, and knew not how to save
+himself from the vengeance of the king.
+
+
+Now, while Morven was musing hopelessly, he heard a roar of waters;
+and behold the river, for it was now the end of autumn, had burst its
+bounds, and was rushing along the valley to the houses of the city.
+
+And now the men of the tribe, and the women, and the children, came
+running, and with shrieks to Morven’s house, crying:
+
+“Behold the river has burst upon us!--Save us, O ruler of the stars!”
+
+Then the sudden thought broke upon Morven and he resolved to risk his
+fate upon one desperate scheme.
+
+And he came out from the house calm and sad, and he said:
+
+“Ye know not what ye ask; I cannot save ye from this peril: ye have
+brought it on yourselves.”
+
+And they cried: “How? O son of Osslah--we are ignorant of our crime.”
+
+And he answered:
+
+“Go down to the king’s palace and wait before it, and surely I will
+follow ye, and ye shall learn wherefore ye have incurred this punishment
+from the gods.”
+
+Then the crowd rolled murmuring back, as a receding sea; and when it was
+gone from the place, Morven went alone to the house of Darvan, which was
+next his own: and Darvan was greatly terrified, for he was of a great
+age, and had no children, neither friends, and he feared that he could
+not of himself escape the waters.
+
+And Morven said to him, soothingly:
+
+“Lo, the people love me, and I will see that thou art saved for verily
+thou hast been friendly to me, and done me much service with the king.”
+
+And as he thus spake, Morven opened the door of the house and looked
+forth, and saw that they were quite alone; then he seized the old man by
+the throat, and ceased not his grip till he was quite dead.
+
+And leaving the body of the elder on the floor, Morven, stole from the
+house and shut the gate.
+
+And as he was going to his cave he mused a little while, when, hearing
+the mighty roar of the waves advancing, and afar off the shrieks of
+women, he lifted up his head, and said proudly:
+
+“No! in this hour terror alone shall be my slave; I will use no art save
+the power of my soul.”
+
+So, leaning on his pine staff, he strode down to the palace.
+
+And it was now evening, and many of the men held torches, that they
+might see each other’s faces in the universal fear.
+
+Red flashed the quivering flames on the dark robes and pale front of
+Morven; and he seemed mightier than the rest, because his face alone was
+calm amidst the tumult.
+
+And louder and hoarser came the roar of the waters; and swift rusted the
+shades of night over the hastening tide.
+
+And Morven said in a stern voice:
+
+“Where is the king; and wherefore is he absent from his people in the
+hour of dread?”
+
+Then the gate of the palace opened; and, behold Siror was sitting in the
+hall by the vast pine-fire and his brother by his side, and his chiefs
+around him: for they would not deign to come amongst the crowd at the
+bidding of the herdsman’s son.
+
+Then Morven, standing upon a rock above the heads of the people (the
+same rack whereon he had proclaimed the king), thus spake:
+
+“Ye desired to know, O sons of Oestrich! wherefore the river hath burst
+its bounds, and the peril hath come upon you.
+
+“Learn then, that the stars resent as the foulest of human crimes an
+insult to their servants and delegates below.
+
+“Ye are all aware of the manner of life of Morven, whom ye have surnamed
+the Prophet!
+
+“He harms not man or beast; he lives alone; and, far from the wild joys
+of the warrior tribe, he worships in awe and fear the Powers of Night!
+
+“So is he able to advise ye of the coming danger--so is he able to save
+ye from the foe. Thus are your huntsmen swift and your warriors bold;
+and thus do your cattle bring forth their young, and the earth its
+fruits.
+
+“What think ye, and what do ye ask to hear?
+
+“Listen, men of Oestrich!--they have laid snares for my life; and there
+are amongst you those who have whetted the sword against the bosom that
+is only filled with love for you.
+
+“Therefore have the stern lords of heaven loosened the chains of the
+river--therefore doth this evil menace ye.
+
+“Neither will it pass away until they who dig the pit for the servant of
+the stars are buried in the same.”
+
+Then, by the red torches, the faces of the men looked fierce and
+threatening; and ten thousand voices shouted forth:
+
+“Name them who conspired against thy life, O holy prophet! and surely
+they shall be torn limb from limb.”
+
+And Morven turned aside, and they saw that he wept bitterly; and he
+said:
+
+“Ye have asked me, and I have answered: but now scarce will ye believe
+the foe that I have provoked against me; and by the heavens themselves
+I swear, that if my death would satisfy their fury, nor bring down
+upon yourselves, and your children’s children, the anger of the throned
+stars, gladly would I give my bosom to the knife. Yes,” he cried,
+lifting up his voice, and pointing his shadowy arm towards the hall
+where the king sat by the pine-fire--“yes, thou whom by my voice the
+stars chose above thy brother--yes, Siror, the guilty one! take thy
+sword, and come hither--strike, if thou hast the heart to strike, the
+Prophet of the Gods!”
+
+The king started to his feet, and the crowd were hushed in a shuddering
+silence.
+
+Morven resumed:
+
+“Know then, O men of Oestrich, that Siror and Voltoch, his brother, and
+Darvan, the elder of the wise men, have purposed to slay your prophet,
+even at such hour as when alone he seeks the shade of the forest to
+devise new benefits for you. Let the king deny it, if he can!”
+
+Then Voltoch, of the giant limbs, strode forth from the hall, and his
+spear quivered in his hand.
+
+“Rightly hast thou spoken, base son of my father’s herdsman! and for
+thy sins shalt thou surely die; for thou liest when thou speakest of thy
+power with the stars, and thou laughest at the folly of them who hear
+thee: wherefore put him to death.”
+
+Then the chiefs in the hall clashed their arms, and rushed forth to slay
+the son of Osslah.
+
+But he, stretching his unarmed hands on high, exclaimed:
+
+“Hear him, O dread ones of the night--hark how he blasphemeth.”
+
+Then the crowd took up the word, and cried:
+
+“He blasphemeth--he blasphemeth against the prophet!”
+
+But the king and the chiefs who hated Morven, because of his power with
+the people, rushed into the crowd; and the crowd were irresolute, nor
+knew they how to act, for never yet had they rebelled against their
+chiefs, and they feared alike the prophet and the king.
+
+And Siror cried:
+
+“Summon Darvan to us, for he bath watched the steps of Morven, and he
+shall lift the veil from my people’s eyes.”
+
+Then three of the swift of foot started forth to the house of Darvan.
+
+And Morven cried out with a loud voice:
+
+“Hark! thus saith the star who, now riding through yonder cloud breaks
+forth upon my eyes--‘For the lie that the elder hath uttered against my
+servant, the curse of the stars shall fall upon him.’ Seek, and as ye
+find him, so may ye find ever the foes of Morven and the gods.”
+
+A chill and an icy fear fell over the crowd, and even the cheek of Siror
+grew pale; and Morven, erect and dark above the waving torches, stood
+motionless with folded arms.
+
+And hark--far and fast came on the war-steeds of the wave--the people
+heard them marching to the land, and tossing their white manes in the
+roaring wind.
+
+“Lo, as ye listen,” said Morven, calmly, “the river sweeps on. Haste,
+for the gods will have a victim, be it your prophet or your king.”
+
+“Slave!” shouted Siror, and his spear left his hand, and far above the
+heads of the crowd sped hissing beside the dark form of Morven, and rent
+the trunk of the oak behind.
+
+Then the people, wroth at the danger of their beloved seer, uttered a
+wild yell, and gathered round him with brandished swords, facing their
+chieftains and their king.
+
+But at that instant, ere the war had broken forth among the tribe, the
+three warriors returned, and they bore Darvan on their shoulders, and
+laid him at the feet of the king, and they said tremblingly:
+
+“Thus found we the elder in the centre of his own hall.”
+
+And the people saw that Darvan was a corpse, and that the prediction of
+Morven was thus verified.
+
+“So perish the enemies of Morven and the Stars!” cried the son of
+Osslah. And the people echoed the cry.
+
+Then the fury of Siror was at its height, and waving his sword above his
+head, he plunged into the crowd:
+
+“Thy blood, base-born, or mine.”
+
+“So be it!” answered Morven, quailing not. “People, smite the
+blasphemer. Hark how the river pours down upon your children and your
+hearths. On, on, or ye perish!”
+
+And Siror fell, pierced by five hundred spears.
+
+“Smite! smite!” cried Morven, as the chiefs of the royal house gathered
+round the king.
+
+And the clash of swords, and the gleam of spears, and the cries of the
+dying, and the yell of the trampling people, mingled with the roar of
+the elements, and the voices of the rushing wave.
+
+Three hundred of the chiefs perished that night by the swords of
+their own tribe. And the last cry of the victors was, “_Morven the
+prophet_--MORVEN THE KING!”
+
+And the son of Osslah, seeing the waves now spreading over the valley,
+led Orna his wife, and the men of Oestrich, their women and their
+children, to a high mount, where they waited the dawning sun.
+
+But Orna sat apart and wept bitterly, for her brothers were no more, and
+her race had perished from the earth.
+
+And Morven sought to comfort her in vain.
+
+When the morning rose, they saw that the river had overspread the
+greater part of the city, and now stayed its course among the hollows of
+the vale.
+
+Then Morven said to the people: “The star kings are avenged, and their
+wrath appeased. Tarry only here until the water have melted into the
+crevices of the soil.”
+
+And on the fourth day they returned to the city, and no man dared to
+name another, save Morven, as the king.
+
+
+But Morven retired into his cave and mused deeply; and then assembling
+the people, he gave them new laws; and he made them build a mighty
+temple in honor of the stars, and made them heap within it all that the
+tribe held most precious.
+
+And he took unto him fifty children from the most famous of the tribe;
+and he took also ten from among the men who had served him best, and
+he ordained that they should serve the stars in the great temple: and
+Morven was their chief.
+
+And he put away the crown they pressed upon him, and he chose from among
+the elders a new king.
+
+And he ordained that henceforth the servants only of the stars in the
+great temple should elect the king and the rulers, and hold council,
+and proclaim war: but he suffered the king to feast, and to hunt, and to
+make merry in the banquet halls.
+
+And Morven built altars in the temple, and was the first who, in the
+North, _sacrificed the beast and the bird, and afterwards human flesh_,
+upon the altars.
+
+And he drew auguries from the entrails of the victim, and made schools
+for the science of the prophet; and Morven’s piety was the wonder of the
+tribe, in that he refused to be a king.
+
+And Morven, the high-priest, was _ten thousand times mightier than the
+king_.
+
+He taught the people to till the ground, and to sow the herb; and by
+his wisdom, and the valor that his prophecies instilled into men, he
+conquered all the neighboring tribes.
+
+And the sons of Oestrich spread themselves over a mighty empire, and
+with them spread the name and the laws of Morven.
+
+And in every province which he conquered, he ordered them to build a
+temple to the stars.
+
+But a heavy sorrow fell upon the years of Morven.
+
+The sister of Siror bowed down her head and survived not long the
+slaughter of her race.
+
+And she left Morven childless.
+
+And he mourned bitterly and as one distraught, for her only in the world
+had his heart the power to love.
+
+And he sat down and covered his face, saying:
+
+“Lo: I have conquered and travailed; and never before in the world did
+man conquer what I have conquered.
+
+“Verily, the empire of the iron thews and the giant limbs is no more;
+I have found a new power, that henceforth shall sway the lands;--_the
+empire of plotting brain and a commanding mind_.
+
+“But, behold, my fate is barren, and I feel already that it will grow
+neither fruit nor tree as a shelter to mine old age.
+
+“Desolate and lonely shall I pass away unto my grave.
+
+“O Orna! my beautiful! my loved! none were like unto thee, and to thy
+love do I owe my glory and my life.
+
+“Would for thy sake, O sweet bird! that nestled in the dark cavern of my
+heart--would for thy sake that thy brethren had been spared, for verily
+with my life would I have purchased thine.
+
+“Alas! only when I lost thee did I find that thy love was dearer to me
+than the fear of others.”
+
+And Morven mourned night and day, and none might comfort him.
+
+But from that time forth he gave himself solely to the cares of his
+calling; and his nature and his affections, and whatever there was left
+soft in him, grew hard like stone; and he was a man without love, _and
+he forbade love and marriage to the priest_.
+
+Now, in his latter years, there arose OTHER prophets; for the world had
+grown wiser even by Morven’s wisdom, and some did say unto themselves:
+
+“Behold Morven, the herdsman’s son, is a king of kings: this did the
+stars for their servant; shall we not, therefore, be also servants to
+the star?”
+
+And they wore black garments like Morven, and went about prophesying of
+what the stars foretold them.
+
+And Morven was exceeding wroth; for he, more than other men, knew
+that the prophets lied; wherefore he went forth against them with the
+ministers of the temple, and he took them and burned them by a slow
+fire: for thus said Morven to the people:
+
+“_A true prophet hath honor, but I only am a true prophet!_”
+
+“To all false prophets there shall be surely death.”
+
+And the people applauded the piety of the son of Osslah.
+
+And Morven educated the wisest of the children in the mysteries of the
+temple, so that they grew up to succeed him worthily.
+
+And he died full of years and honor; and they carved his effigy on a
+mighty stone before the temple, and the effigy endured for a thousand
+ages, and whoso looked on it trembled; for the face was calm with the
+calmness of unspeakable awe!
+
+And Morven was the first mortal of the North that made _Religion the
+stepping stone to Power_.
+
+Of a surety Morven was a great man!
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+It was the last night of the old year, and the stars sat, each upon his
+ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes upon the world. The
+night was dark and troubled, the dread winds were abroad, and fast and
+frequent hurried the clouds beneath the thrones of the kings of night.
+But ever and anon fiery meteors flashed along the depths of heaven, and
+were again swallowed up in the graves of darkness.
+
+And far below his brethren, and with a lurid haze around his orb, sat
+the discontented star that had watched over the hunters of the North.
+And on the lowest abyss of space there was spread a thick and mighty
+gloom, from which, as from a caldron, rose columns of wreathing smoke;
+and still, when the great winds rested for an instant on their paths,
+voices of woe and laughter, mingled with shrieks, were heard booming
+from the abyss to the upper air.
+
+And now, in the middest night, a vast figure rose slowly from the abyss,
+and its wings threw blackness over the world. High upward to the throne
+of the discontented star sailed the fearful shape, and the star trembled
+on his throne when the form stood before him face to face. And the shape
+said: “Hail, brother!--all hail!”
+
+“I know thee not,” answered the star: “thou art not the archangel that
+visitests the kings of night.”
+
+And the shape laughed loud. “I am the fallen star of the morning.--I am
+Lucifer, thy brother. Hast thou not, O sullen king, served me and mine?
+and hast thou not wrested the earth from thy Lord who sittest above
+and given it to me by _darkening the souls of men with the religion
+of fear?_ Wherefore come, brother, come;--thou hast a throne prepared
+beside my own in the fiery gloom. Come.--The heavens are no more for
+thee.” Then the star rose from his throne, and descended to the side of
+Lucifer. For ever hath the spirit of discontent had sympathy with the
+soul of pride.
+
+And slowly they sank down to the gulf of gloom. It was the first night
+of the new year, and the stars sat each on his ruby throne, and watched
+with sleepless eyes upon the world. But sorrow dimmed the bright faces
+of the kings of night, for they mourned in silence and in fear for a
+fallen brother.
+
+And the gates of the heaven of heavens flew open with a golden sound,
+and the swift archangel fled down on his silent wings; and the archangel
+gave to each of the stars, as before, the message of his Lord; and to
+each star was his appointed charge.
+
+And when the heraldry seemed done, there came a laugh from the abyss of
+gloom, and half way from the gulf rose the lurid shape of Lucifer, the
+fiend.
+
+“Thou countest thy flock ill, O radiant shepherd. Behold! one star is
+missing from the three thousand and ten.”
+
+“Back to thy gulf, false Lucifer!--the throne of thy brother hath been
+filled.”
+
+And lo! as the archangel spake, the stars beheld a young and all
+lustrous stranger on the throne of the erring star; and his face was so
+soft to look upon, that the dimmest of human eyes might have gazed upon
+its splendor unabashed; but the dark fiend alone was dazzled by its
+lustre, and, with a yell that shook the flaming pillars of the universe,
+he plunged backwards into the gloom.
+
+Then, far and sweet from the arch unseen, came forth the voice of God:
+
+“Behold! _on the throne of the discontented star sits the star of hope;
+and he that breathed into mankind the Religion of Fear hath a successor
+in him who shall teach earth the Religion of Love._”
+
+And evermore the Star of Fear dwells with Lucifer, and the Star of Love
+keeps vigil in heaven.
+
+
+
+
+
+ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL
+
+By Lord Brougham
+
+
+
+
+A DISSERTATION ON THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.
+
+The question which has more than, any other harassed metaphysical
+reasoners, but especially theologians, and upon which it is probable
+that no very satisfactory conclusion will ever be reached by the human
+faculties, is the Origin and Sufferance of Evil.
+
+Its existence being always assumed, philosophers have formed various
+theories for explaining it, but they have always drawn very different
+inferences from it.
+
+The ancient Epicureans argued against the existence of the Deity,
+because they held that the existence of Evil either proved him to be
+limited in power or of a malignant nature; either of which imperfections
+is inconsistent with the first notions of a divine being.
+
+In this kind of reasoning they have been followed both by the atheists
+and sceptics of later times.
+
+Bayle regarded the subject of evil as one of the great arsenals from
+whence his weapons were to be chiefly drawn. None of the articles in his
+famous Dictionary are more labored than those in which he treats of
+this subject. _Monichian_, and still more _Paulician_, almost assume the
+appearance of formal treatises upon the question; and both _Marchionite_
+and _Zoroaster_ treat of the same subject. All these articles are of
+considerable value; they contain the greater part of the learning upon
+the question; and they are distinguished by the acuteness of reasoning
+which was the other characteristic of their celebrated author.
+
+Those ancient philosophers who did not agree with Epicurus in arguing
+from the existence of evil against the existence of a providence that
+superintended and influenced the destinies of the world, were put to no
+little difficulty in accounting for the fact which they did not deny,
+and yet maintaining the power of a divine ruler. The doctrine of a
+double principle, or of two divine beings of opposite natures, one
+beneficent, the other mischievous, was the solution which one class of
+reasoners deemed satisfactory, and to which they held themselves driven
+by the phenomena of the universe.
+
+Others unable to deny, the existence of things which men denominate
+evil, both physical and moral, explain them in a different way. They
+maintained that physical evil only obtains the name from our imperfect
+and vicious or feeble dispositions; that to a wise man there is no such
+thing; that we may rise superior to all such groveling notions as make
+us dread or repine at any events which can befall the body; that pain,
+sickness, loss of fortune or of reputation, exile, death itself, are
+only accounted ills by a weak and pampered mind; that if we find the
+world tiresome, or woeful, or displeasing, we may at any moment quit
+it; and that therefore we have no right whatever to call any suffering
+connected with existence on earth an evil, because almost all sufferings
+can be borne by a patient and firm mind; since if the situation we are
+placed in becomes either intolerable, or upon the whole more painful
+than agreeable, it is our own fault that we remain in it.
+
+But these philosophers took a further view of the question which
+especially applied to moral evil. They considered that nothing could be
+more groundless than to suppose that if there were no evil there could
+be any good in the world; and they illustrated this position by asking
+how we could know anything of temperance, fortitude or justice, unless
+there were such things as excess, cowardice and injustice.
+
+These were the doctrines of the Stoics, from whose sublime and
+impracticable philosophy they seemed naturally enough to flow. Aulus
+Gellius relates that the last-mentioned argument was expounded by
+Chrysippus, in his work upon providence. The answer given by Plutarch
+seems quite sufficient: “As well might you say that Achilles could not
+have a fine head of hair unless Thersites had been bald; or that one
+man’s limbs could not be all sound if another had not the gout.”
+
+In truth, the Stoical doctrine proceeds upon the assumption that all
+virtue is only the negative of vice; and is as absurd, if indeed it
+be not the very same absurdity, as the doctrine which should deny the
+existence of affirmative or positive truths, resolving them all into the
+opposite of negative propositions. Indeed, if we even were to admit this
+as an abstract position, the actual existence of evil would still be
+unnecessary to the idea, and still more to the existence, of good. For
+the conception of evil, the bare idea of its possibility, would be quite
+sufficient, and there would be no occasion for a single example of it.
+
+The other doctrine, that of two opposite principles, was embraced by
+most of the other sects, as it should seem, at some period or other
+of their inquiries. Plato himself, in his later works, was clearly
+a supporter of the system; for he held that there were at least two
+principles, a good and an evil; to which he added a third, the moderator
+or mediator between them.
+
+Whether this doctrine was, like many others, imported into Greece from
+the East, or was the natural growth of the schools, we cannot ascertain.
+Certain it is that the Greeks themselves believed it to have been taught
+by Zoroaster in Asia, at least five centuries before the Trojan war; so
+that it had an existence there long before the name of philosophy was
+known in the western world.
+
+Zoroaster’s doctrine agreed in every respect with Plato’s; for besides
+Oomazes, the good, and Arimanius, the evil principle, he taught that
+there was a third, or mediatory one, called Mithras. That it never
+became any part of the popular belief in Greece or Italy is quite clear.
+All the polytheism of those countries recognized each of the gods
+as authors alike of good and evil. Nor did even the chief of the
+divinities, under whose power the rest were placed, offer any exception
+to the general rule; for Jupiter not only gave good from one urn and ill
+from another, but he was also, according to the barbarous mythology of
+classical antiquity, himself a model at once of human perfections and of
+human vices.
+
+After the light of the Christian religion had made some way toward
+supplanting the ancient polytheism, the doctrine of two principles was
+broached; first by Marcion, who lived in the time of Adrian and Antonius
+Pius, early in the second century; and next by Manes, a hundred years
+later. He was a Persian slave, who was brought into Greece, where he
+taught this doctrine, since known by his name, having learned it, as is
+said, from Scythianus, an Arabian. The Manichean doctrines, afterwards
+called also Paulician, from a great teacher of them in the seventh
+century, were like almost all the heresies in the primitive church, soon
+mixed up with gross impurities of sacred rites as well as extravagant
+absurdities of creed.
+
+The Manicheans were, probably as much on this account as from the spirit
+of religious intolerance, early the objects of severe persecution; and
+the Code of Justinian itself denounces capital punishment against any of
+the sect, if found within the Roman dominions.
+
+It must be confessed that the theory of two principles, when kept free
+from the absurdities and impurities which were introduced into the
+Manichean doctrine, is not unnaturally adopted by men who have no
+aid from the light of revelation,[1] and who are confounded by the
+appearance of a world where evil and good are mixed together, or seem to
+struggle with one another, sometimes the one prevailing, and sometimes
+the other; and accordingly, in all countries, in the most barbarous
+nations, as well as among the most refined, we find plain traces of
+reflecting men having been driven to this solution of the difficulty.
+
+It seems upon a superficial view to be very easily deducible from
+the phenomena; and as the idea of infinite power, with which it is
+manifestly inconsistent, does by no means so naturally present itself to
+the mind, as long as only a very great degree of power, a power which in
+comparison of all human force may be termed infinite, is the attribute
+with which the Deity is believed to be endued. Manichean hypothesis is
+by no means so easily refuted. That the power of the Deity was supposed
+to have limits even in the systems of the most enlightened heathens is
+unquestionable. They, generally speaking, believed in the eternity
+of matter, and conceived some of its qualities to be so essentially
+necessary to its existence that no divine agency could alter them.
+They ascribed to the Deity a plastic power, a power not of creating or
+annihilating, but only of moulding, disposing and moving matter. So over
+mind they generally give him the like power, considering it as a kind
+of emanation from his own greater mind or essence, and destined to be
+re-united with him hereafter. Nay, over all the gods, and of superior
+potency to any, they conceived fate to preside; an overruling and
+paramount necessity, of which they formed some dark conceptions, and to
+which the chief of all the gods was supposed to submit. It is, indeed,
+extremely difficult to state precisely what the philosophic theory of
+theology was in Greece and Rome, because the wide difference between the
+esoteric and exoteric doctrines, between the belief of the learned
+few and the popular superstition, makes it very difficult to avoid
+confounding the two, and lending to the former some of the grosser
+errors with which the latter abounded. Nevertheless, we may rely upon
+what has been just stated, as conveying, generally speaking, the opinion
+of philosophers, although some sects certainly had a still more scanty
+measure of belief.
+
+But we shall presently find that in the speculation of the much more
+enlightened moderns, Christians of course, errors of a like kind are
+to be traced. They constantly argue the great question of evil upon a
+latent assumption, that the power of the Deity is restricted by some
+powers or qualities inherent in matter; notions analogous to that of
+faith are occasionally perceptible; not stated or expanded indeed into
+propositions, but influencing the course of the reasoning; while the
+belief of infinite attributes is never kept steadily in view, except
+when it is called in as requisite to refute the Manichean doctrines.
+Some observers of the controversy have indeed not scrupled to affirm
+that those of whom we speak are really Manicheans without knowing it;
+and build their systems upon assumptions secretly borrowed from the
+disciples of Zoroaster, without ever stating those assumptions openly in
+the form of postulates or definition.
+
+The refutation of the Manichean hypothesis is extremely easy if we
+be permitted to assume that both the principles which it supposes are
+either of infinite power or of equal power. If they are of infinite
+power, the supposition of their co-existence involves a contradiction in
+terms; for the one being in opposition to the other, the power of each
+must be something taken from that of the other; consequently neither
+can be of infinite power. If, again, we only suppose both to be of equal
+power, and always acting against each other, there could be nothing
+whatever done, neither good or evil; the universe would be at a
+standstill; or rather no act of creation could ever have been performed,
+and no existence could be conceived beyond that of the two antagonistic
+principles.
+
+Archbishop Tillotson’s argument, properly speaking, amounts to this
+last proposition, and is applicable to equal and opposite principles,
+although he applies it to two beings, both infinitely powerful and
+counteracting one another. When he says they would tie up each other’s
+bands, he might apply this argument to such antagonistic principles if
+only equal, although not infinitely powerful. The hypothesis of their
+being both infinitely powerful needs no such refutation; it is a
+contradiction in terms. But it must be recollected that the advocates of
+the Manichean doctrine endeavor to guard themselves against the attack
+by contending, that the conflict between the two principles ends in a
+kind of compromise, so that neither has it all his own way; there is a
+mixture of evil admitted by the good principle, because else the whole
+would beat a standstill; while there is much good admitted by the evil
+principle, else nothing, either good or evil, would be done. Another
+answer is therefore required to this theory than what Tillotson and his
+followers have given.
+
+_First_, we must observe that this reasoning of the Manicheans proceeds
+upon the analogy of what we see in mortal contentions; where neither
+party having the power to defeat the other, each is content to yield
+a little to his adversary, and so, by mutual concession, both are
+successful to some extent, and both to some extent disappointed. But in
+a speculation concerning the nature of the Deity, there seems no place
+for such notions.
+
+_Secondly_, the equality of power is not an arbitrary assumption; it
+seems to follow from the existence of the two opposing principles. For
+if they are independent of one another as to existence, which they must
+needs be, else one would immediately destroy the other, so must they
+also, in each particular instance, be independent of each other, and
+also equal each to the other, else one would have the mastery, and
+the influence of the other could not be perceived. To say that in some
+things the good principle prevails and in others the evil, is really
+saying nothing more than that good exists here and evil there. It
+does not further the argument one step, nor give anything like an
+explanation. For it must always be borne in mind that the whole question
+respecting the Origin of Evil proceeds upon the assumption of a wise,
+benevolent and powerful Being having created the world. The difficulty,
+and the only difficulty, is, how to reconcile existing evil with such
+a Being’s attributes; and if the Manichean only explains this by saying
+the good Being did what is good, and another and evil Being did what is
+bad in the universe, he really tells us nothing more than the fact; he
+does not apply his explanation to the difficulty; and he supposes the
+existence of a second Deity gratuitously and to no kind of purpose.
+
+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.
+
+The number of possible things is infinite; but every possibility implies
+a power to do the possible thing; and as one possible thing implies
+a power to do it, an infinite number of possible things implies an
+infinite power. Or as Descartes and his followers put it, we can have no
+idea of anything that has not either an actual or a possible existence;
+but we have an idea of a Being of infinite perfection; therefore,
+he must actually exist; for otherwise there would be one perfection
+wanting, and so he would not be infinite, which he either is actually
+or possibly. It is needless to remark that this whole argument, whatever
+may be said of the former one, is a pure fallacy, and a _petitio
+principii_ throughout. The Cartesian form of it is the most glaringly
+fallacious, and indeed exposes itself; for by that reasoning we might
+prove the existence of a fiery dragon or any other phantom of the brain.
+But even King’s more concealed sophism is equally absurd. What ground
+is there for saying that the number of possible things is infinite? He
+adds, “at least in power,” which means either nothing or only that we
+have the power of conceiving an infinite number of possibilities. But
+because we can conceive or fancy an infinity of possibilities, does it
+follow that there actually exists this infinity? The whole argument is
+unworthy of a moment’s consideration. The other is more plausible,
+that restriction implies a restraining power. But even this is not
+satisfactory when closely examined. For although the first cause must
+be self-existent and of eternal duration, we only are driven by the
+necessity of supposing a cause whereon all the argument rests, to
+suppose one capable of causing all that actually exists; and, therefore,
+to extend this inference and suppose that the cause is of infinite power
+seems gratuitous. Nor is it necessary to suppose another power limiting
+its efficacy, if we do not find it necessary to suppose its own
+constitution and essence such as we term infinitely powerful. However,
+after noticing this manifest defect in the fundamental part of the
+argument, that which infers infinite power, let us for the present
+assume the position to be proved either by these or by any other
+reasons, and see if the structure raised upon it is such as can stand
+the test of examination.
+
+Thus, then, an infinitely powerful Being exists, and he was the creator
+of the universe; but to incline him towards the creation there could be
+no possible motive of happiness to himself, and he must, says King, have
+either sought his own happiness or that of the universe which he made.
+Therefore his own ideas must have been the communication of happiness to
+the creature. He could only desire to exercise his attributes without,
+or eternally to himself, which before creating other beings he could not
+do. But this could only gratify his nature, which wants nothing, being
+perfect in itself, by communicating his goodness and providing for the
+happiness of other sentient beings created by him for this purpose.
+Therefore, says King, “it manifestly follows that the world is as
+well as it could be made by infinite power and goodness; for since the
+exercise of the divine power and the communication of his goodness are
+the ends, for which the world is formed, there is no doubt but God
+has attained these ends.” And again, “If then anything inconvenient or
+incommodious be now, or was from the beginning in it, that certainly
+could not be hindered or removed even by infinite power, wisdom and
+goodness.”
+
+Now certainly no one can deny, that if God be infinitely powerful and
+also infinitely good, it must follow that whatever looks like evil,
+either is not really evil, or that it is such as infinite power could
+not avoid. This is implied in the very terms of the hypothesis. It may
+also be admitted that if the Deity’s only object in his dispensation be
+the happiness of his creatures, the same conclusion follows even without
+assuming his nature to be infinitely good; for we admit what, for the
+purpose of the argument, is the same thing, namely, that there entered
+no evil into his design in creating or maintaining the universe. But
+all this really assumes the very thing to be proved. King gets over the
+difficulty and reaches his conclusion by saying, “The Deity could
+have only one of two objects--his own happiness or that of his
+creatures.”--The skeptic makes answer, “He might have another object,
+namely, the misery of his creatures;” and then the whole question is,
+whether or not he had this other object; or, which is the same thing,
+whether or not his nature is perfectly good. It must never be forgotten
+that unless evil exists there is nothing to dispute about--the question
+falls. The whole difficulty arises from the admission that evil exists,
+or what we call evil, exists. From this we inquire whether or not the
+author of it can be perfectly benevolent? or if he be, with what view he
+has created it? This assumes him to be infinitely powerful, or at
+least powerful enough to have prevented the evil; but indeed we are now
+arguing with the Archbishop on the supposition that he has proved the
+Deity to be of infinite power. The skeptic rests upon his dilemma, and
+either alternative, limited power or limited goodness, satisfies him.
+
+It is quite plain, therefore, that King has assumed the thing to be
+proved in his first argument, or argument _a priori_. For he proceeds
+upon the postulates that the Deity is infinitely good, and that he only
+had human happiness in view when he made the world. Either supposition
+would have served his purpose; and making either would have been taking
+for granted the whole matter in dispute. But he has assumed both; and
+it must be added, he has made his assumption of both as if he was only
+laying down a single position. This part of the work is certainly more
+slovenly than the rest. It is the third section of the first chapter.
+
+It is certainly not from any reluctance to admit the existence of evil
+that the learned author and his able commentator have been led into this
+inconclusive course of reasoning. We shall nowhere find more striking
+expositions of the state of things in this respect, nor more gloomy
+descriptions of our condition, than in their celebrated work. “Whence
+so many, inaccuracies,” says the Archbishop, “in the work of a most good
+and powerful God? Whence that perpetual war between the very elements,
+between animals, between men? Whence errors, miseries and vices, the
+constant companions of human life from its infancy? Whence good to evil
+men, evil to the good? If we behold anything irregular in the work
+of men, if any machine serves not the end it was made for, if we find
+something in it repugnant to itself or others, we attribute that to
+the ignorance, impatience or malice of the workman. But since these
+qualities have no place in God, how come they to have place in anything?
+Or why does God suffer his works to be deformed by them?”--Chap. ii. s.
+3. Bishop Law, in his admirable preface, still more cogently puts the
+case: “When I inquire how I got into the world, and came to be what
+I am, I am told that an absolutely perfect being produced me out of
+nothing, and placed me here on purpose to communicate some part of his
+happiness to me, and to make me in some manner like himself. This end is
+not obtained--the direct contrary appears--I find myself surrounded with
+nothing but perplexity, want and misery--by whose fault I know not--how
+to better myself I cannot tell. What notions of good and goodness can
+this afford me? What ideas of religion? What hopes of a future state?
+For if God’s aim in producing me be entirely unknown, if it be either
+his glory (as some will have it), which my present state is far from
+advancing, nor mine own good, which the same is equally inconsistent
+with, how know I what I have to do here, or indeed in what manner I must
+endeavor to please him? Or why should I endeavor it at all? For if I
+must be miserable in this world, what security have I that I shall not
+be so in another too (if there be one), since if it were the will of
+my Almighty Creator, I might (for aught I see) have been happy in
+both.”--Pref. viii. The question thus is stated. The difficulty is
+raised in its full and formidable magnitude by both these learned and
+able men; that they have signally failed to lay it by the argument _a
+priori_ is plain. Indeed, it seems wholly impossible ever to answer by
+an argument _a priori_ any objection whatever which arises altogether
+out of the facts made known to us by experience alone, and which are
+therefore in the nature of contingent truths, resting upon contingent
+evidence, while all demonstrations _a priori_ must necessarily proceed
+upon mathematical truths. Let us now see if their labors have been more
+successful in applying to the solution of the difficulty the reasoning
+_a posteriori._
+
+Archbishop King divides evil into three kinds--imperfection, natural
+evil and moral evil--including under the last head all the physical
+evils that arise from human actions, as well as the evils which consists
+in the guilt of those actions.
+
+The existence of imperfection is stated to be necessary, because
+everything which is created and not self-existent must be imperfect;
+consequently every work of the Deity, in other words, everything but
+the Deity himself, must have imperfection in its nature. Nor is the
+existence of some beings which are imperfect any interference with
+the attributes of others. Nor the existence of beings with many
+imperfections any interference with others having pre-eminence. The
+goodness of the Deity therefore is not impugned by the existence of
+various orders of created beings more or less approaching to perfection.
+His creating none at all would have left the universe less admirable and
+containing less happiness than it now does. Therefore, the act of mere
+benevolence which called those various orders into existence is not
+impeached in respect of goodness any more than of power by the variety
+of the attributes possessed by the different beings created.
+
+He now proceeds to grapple with the real difficulty of the question. And
+it is truly astonishing to find this acute metaphysician begin with an
+assumption which entirely begs that question. As imperfection, says he,
+arises from created beings having been made out of nothing, so natural
+evils arise “from all natural things having a relation to matter, and
+on this account being necessarily subject to natural evil.” As long as
+matter is subject to motion, it must be the subject of generation and
+corruption. “These and all other natural evils,” says the author, “are
+so necessarily connected with the material origin of things that they
+cannot be separated from it, and thus the structure of the world either
+ought not to have been formed at all, or these evils must have been
+tolerated without any imputation on the divine power and goodness.”
+ Again, he says, “corruption could not be avoided without violence done
+to the laws of motion and the nature of matter.” Again, “All manner
+of inconveniences could not be avoided because of the imperfection of
+matter and the nature of motion. That state of things were therefore
+preferable which was attained with the fewest and the least
+inconveniences.” Then follows a kind of menace, “And who but a very
+rash, indiscreet person will affirm that God has not made choice of
+this?”--when every one must perceive that the bare propounding of the
+question concerning evil calls upon us to exercise this temerity and
+commit this indiscretion.--Chap. iv. s. I, div. 7. He then goes into
+more detail as to particular cases of natural evil; but all are handled
+in the same way. Thus death is explained by saying that the bodies of
+animals are a kind of vessels which contain fluids in motion, and being
+broken, the fluids are spilt and the motions cease; “because by the
+native imperfection of matter it is capable of dissolution, and the
+spilling and stagnation must necessarily follow, and with it animal life
+must cease.”--Chap. iv. s. 3. Disease is dealt with in like manner. “It
+could not be avoided unless animals had been made of a quite different
+frame and constitution.”--Chap. iv. s. 7. The whole reasoning is summed
+up in the concluding section of this part, where the author somewhat
+triumphantly says, “The difficult question then, whence comes evil? is
+not unanswerable. For it arises from the very nature and
+constitution of created beings, and could not be avoided without a
+contradiction.”--Chap. iv. s. 9. To this the commentary of Bishop Law
+adds (Note 4i), “that natural evil has been shown to be, in every case,
+unavoidable, without introducing into the system a greater evil.”
+
+It is certain that many persons, led away by the authority of a great
+name, have been accustomed to regard this work as a text-book, and have
+appealed to Archbishop King and his learned commentator as having solved
+the question. So many men have referred to the _Principia_ as showing
+the motions of the heavenly bodies, who never read, or indeed could
+read, a page of that immortal work. But no man ever did open it who
+could read it and find himself disappointed in any one particular;
+the whole demonstration is perfect; not a link is wanting; nothing is
+assumed. How different the case here! We open the work of the prelate
+and find it from the first to last a chain of gratuitous assumptions,
+and, of the main point, nothing whatever is either proved or explained.
+Evil arises, he says, from the nature of matter. Who doubts it? But is
+not the whole question why matter was created with such properties as
+of necessity to produce evil? It was impossible, says he, to avoid it
+consistently with the laws of motion and matter. Unquestionably; but
+the whole dispute is upon those laws. If indeed the laws of nature, the
+existing constitution of the material world, were assumed as necessary,
+and as binding upon the Deity, how is it possible that any question ever
+could have been raised? The Deity having the power to make those laws,
+to endow matter with that constitution, and having also the power to
+make different laws and to give matter another constitution, the whole
+question is, how his choosing to create the present existing order of
+things--the laws and the constitution which we find to prevail--can be
+reconciled with perfect goodness. The whole argument of the Archbishop
+assumes that matter and its laws are independent of the Deity; and the
+only conclusion to which the inquiry leads us is that the Creator has
+made a world with as little of evil in it as the nature of things,--that
+is, as the laws of nature and matter--allowed him; which is nonsense,
+if those laws were made by him, and leaves the question where it was, or
+rather solves it by giving up the omnipotence of the Creator, if these
+laws were binding upon him.
+
+It must be added, however, that Dr. King and Dr. Law are not singular in
+pursuing this most inconclusive course of reasoning.
+
+Thus Dr. J. Clarke, in his treatise on natural evil, quoted by Bishop
+Law (Note 32), shows how mischiefs arise from the laws of matter; and
+says this could not be avoided “without altering those primary laws,
+i. e., making it something else than what it is, or changing it into
+another form; the result of which would only be to render it liable to
+evils of another kind against which the same objections would equally
+lie.” So Dr. J. Burnett, in his discourses on evil, at the Boyle Lecture
+(vol. ii. P. 201), conceives that he explains death by saying that the
+materials of which the body is composed “cannot last beyond seventy
+years, or thereabouts, and it was originally intended that we should die
+at that age.” Pain, too, he imagines is accounted for by observing that
+we are endowed with feelings, and that if we could not feel pain,
+so neither could we pleasure (p. 202). Again, he says that there are
+certain qualities which “in the nature of things matter is incapable of”
+ (p. 207). And as if he really felt the pressure of this difficulty, he
+at length comes to this conclusion, that life is a free gift, which we
+had no right to exact, and which the Deity lay under no necessity to
+grant, and therefore we must take it with the conditions annexed (p.
+210); which is undeniably true, but is excluding the discussion and
+not answering the question proposed. Nor must it be forgotten that
+some reasoners deal strangely with the facts. Thus Derham, in his
+_Physico-Theology_, explaining the use of poison in snakes, first
+desires us to bear in mind that many venomous ones are of use
+medicinally in stubborn diseases, which is not true, and if it were,
+would prove nothing, unless the venom, not the flesh, were proved to be
+medicinal; and then says, they are “scourges upon ungrateful and sinful
+men;” adding the truly astounding absurdity, “that the nations which
+know not God are the most annoyed with noxious reptiles and other
+pernicious creatures.” (Book ix. c. I); which if it were true would
+raise a double difficulty, by showing that one people was scourged
+because another had neglected to preach the gospel among them. Dr. J.
+Burnett, too, accounts for animals being suffered to be killed as food
+for man, by affirming that they thereby gain all the care which man is
+thus led to bestow upon them, and so are, on the whole, the better for
+being eaten. (Boyle Lecture, II. 207). But the most singular error has
+perhaps been fallen into by Dr. Sherlock, and the most, unhappy--which
+yet Bishop Law has cited as a sufficient answer to the objection
+respecting death: “It is a great instrument of government, and makes men
+afraid of committing such villanies as the laws of their country have
+made capital.” (Note 34). So that the greatest error in the criminal
+legislation of all countries forms part of the divine providence, and
+man has at length discovered, by the light of reason, the folly and
+the wickedness of using an instrument expressly created by divine
+Omniscience to be abused!
+
+The remaining portion of King’s work, filling the second volume of
+Bishop Law’s edition, is devoted to the explanation of Moral Evil; and
+here the gratuitous assumption of the “nature of things,” and the “laws
+of nature,” more or less pervade the whole as in the former parts of the
+Inquiry.
+
+The fundamental position of the whole is, that man having been endowed
+with free will, his happiness consists in making due elections, or in
+the right exercise of that free will. Five causes are then given of
+undue elections, in which of course his misery consists as far as that
+depends on himself; these causes are error, negligence, over-indulgence
+of free choice, obstinacy or bad habit, and the importunity of natural
+appetites; which last, it must in passing be remarked, belongs to the
+head of physical evil, and cannot be assumed in this discussion without
+begging the question. The great difficulty is then stated and grappled
+with, namely, how to reconcile these undue elections with divine
+goodness. The objector states that free will might exist without the
+power of making undue elections, he being suffered to range, as it were,
+only among lawful objects of choice. But the answer to this seems sound,
+that such a will would only be free in name; it would be free to choose
+among certain things, but would not be free-will. The objector again
+urges, that either the choice is free and may fall upon evil objects,
+against the goodness of God, or it is so restrained as only to fall on
+good objects. Against freedom of the will King’s solution is, that
+more evil would result from preventing these undue elections than from
+suffering them, and so the Deity has only done the best he could in the
+circumstances; a solution obviously liable to the same objection as that
+respecting Natural Evil. There are three ways, says the Archbishop, in
+which undue elections might have been prevented; not creating a free
+agent--constant interference with his free-will--removing him to another
+state where he would not be tempted to go astray in his choice. A fourth
+mode may, however, be suggested--creating a free-agent without any
+inclination to evil, or any temptation from external objects. When
+our author disposes of the second method, by stating that it assumes a
+constant miracle, as great in the moral as altering the course of the
+planets hourly would be in the material universe, nothing can be more
+sound or more satisfactory. But when he argues that our whole happiness
+consists in a consciousness of freedom of election, and that we should
+never know happiness were we restrained in any particular, it seems
+wholly inconceivable how he should have omitted to consider the
+prodigious comfort of a state in which we should be guaranteed against
+any error or impropriety of choice; a state in which we should both
+be unable to go astray and always feel conscious of that security. He,
+however, begs the question most manifestly in dealing with the two other
+methods stated, by which undue elections might have been precluded. “You
+would have freedom,” says he, “without any inclination to sin; but
+it may justly be doubted if this is possible _in the present state of
+things_,” (chap. v. s. 5, sub. 2); and again, in answering the question
+why God did not remove us into another state where no temptation could
+seduce us, he says: “It is plain that _in the present state of things_
+it is impossible for men to live without natural evils or the danger of
+sinning.” (_Ib_.) Now the whole question arises upon the constitution of
+the present state of things. If that is allowed to be inevitable, or is
+taken as a datum in the discussion, there ceases to be any question at
+all.
+
+The doctrine of a chain of being is enlarged upon, and with much
+felicity of illustration. But it only wraps up the difficulty in other
+words, without solving it. For then the question becomes this--Why did
+the Deity create such a chain as could not be filled up without misery?
+It is, indeed, merely restating the fact of evil existing; for whether
+we say there is suffering among sentient beings--or the universe
+consists of beings more or less happy, more or less miserable--or there
+exists a chain of beings varying in perfection and in felicity--it is
+manifestly all one proposition. The remark of Bayle upon this view of
+the subject is really not at all unsound, and is eminently ingenious:
+“Would you defend a king who should confine all his subjects of a
+certain age in dungeons, upon the ground that if he did not, many of the
+cells he had built must remain empty?” The answer of Bishop Law to this
+remark is by no means satisfactory. He says it assumes that more misery
+than happiness exists. Now, in this view of the question, the balance is
+quite immaterial. The existence of any evil at all raises the question
+as much as the preponderance of evil over good, because the question
+conceives a perfectly good Being, and asks how such a Being can have
+permitted any evil at all. Upon this part of the subject both King
+and Law have fallen into an error which recent discoveries place in a
+singularly clear light. They say that the argument they are dealing with
+would lead to leaving the earth to the brutes without human inhabitants.
+But the recent discoveries in Fossil Osteology have proved that the
+earth, for ages before the last 5,000 or 6,000 years, was left to the
+lower animals; nay, that in a still earlier period of its existence no
+animal life at all was maintained upon its surface. So that, in fact,
+the foundation is removed of the _reductio ad absurdum_ attempted by the
+learned prelates.
+
+A singular argument is used towards the latter end of the inquiry.
+When the Deity, it is said, resolved to create other beings, He must of
+necessity tolerate imperfect natures in his handiwork, just as he must
+the equality of a circle’s radii when he drew a circle. Who does not
+perceive the difference? The meaning of the word circle is that the
+radii are all equal; this equality is a necessary truth. But it is not
+shown that men could not exist without the imperfections they labor
+under. Yet this is the argument suggested by these authors while
+complaining (chap. v. s. 5, sub. 7, div. 7), that Lactantius had not
+sufficiently answered the Epicurean dilemma; it is the substitute
+propounded to supply that father’s deficiency.--“When, therefore,” says
+the Archbishop, “matter, motion and free-will are constituted, the Deity
+must necessarily permit corruption of things and the abuse of
+liberty, or something worse, for these cannot be separated without a
+contradiction, and God is no more important, because he cannot separate
+equality of radii from a circle.”--Chap. v. s. 5, subs. 7. If he could
+not have created evil, he would not have been omnipotent; if he would
+not, he must let his power lie idle; and rejecting evil have
+rejected all the good. “Thus,” exclaims the author with triumph and
+self-complacency, “then vanishes this Herculean argument which induced
+the Epicureans to discard the good Deity, and the Manicheans to
+substitute an evil one.” (_Ib._ subs. 7, _sub. fine._) Nor is the
+explanation rendered more satisfactory, or indeed more intelligible,
+by the concluding passage of all, in which we are told that “from a
+conflict of two properties, namely, omnipotence and goodness, evils
+necessarily arise. These attributes amicably conspire together, and yet
+restrain and limit each other.” It might have been expected from hence
+that no evil at all should be found to exist. “There is a kind of
+struggle and opposition between them, whereof the evils in nature bear
+the shadow and resemblance. Here, then, and no where else, mar we find
+the primary and most certain rise and origin of evils.”
+
+Such is this celebrated work; and it may safely be affirmed that a more
+complete failure to overcome a great and admitted difficulty--a more
+unsatisfactory solution of an important question--is not to be found in
+the whole history of metaphysical science.
+
+Among the authors who have treated of this subject, a high place is
+justly given to Archdeacon Bulguy, whose work on _Divine Benevolence_ is
+always referred to by Dr. Paley with great commendation. But certain it
+is that this learned and pious writer either had never formed to himself
+a very precise notion of the real question under discussion, namely, the
+compatibility of the appearances which we see and which we consider as
+evil, with a Being infinitely powerful as well as good; or he had in his
+mind some opinions respecting the divine nature, opinions of a limitary
+kind, which he does not state distinctly, although he constantly suffers
+them to influence his seasonings. Hence, whenever he comes close to the
+real difficulty he appears to beg the question. A very few instances
+of what really pervades the whole work will suffice to show how
+unsatisfactory its general scope is, although it contains, like
+the treatise of Dr. King and Dr. Law’s Commentary, many valuable
+observations on the details of the subject.
+
+And first we may perceive that what he terms a _“previous remark,”_ and
+desires the reader “to carry along through the whole proof of divine
+benevolence,” really contains a statement that _the difficulty is to be
+evaded and not met._ “An intention of producing good,” says he, “will be
+sufficiently apparent in any particular instance if the thing considered
+can neither be changed nor taken away without loss or harm, _all other
+things continuing the same._ Should you suppose _various_ things in the
+system changed _at once_, you can neither judge of the possibility
+nor the consequences of the changes, having no degree of experience to
+direct you.” Now assuredly this postulate makes the whole question as
+easy a one as ever metaphysician or naturalist had to solve. For it is
+no longer--Why did a powerful and benevolent Being create a world in
+which there is evil--but only--The world being given, how far are its
+different arrangements consistent with one another? According to this,
+the earthquake at Lisbon, Voltaire’s favorite instance, destroyed
+thousands of persons, because it is in the nature of things that
+subterraneous vapors should explode, and that when houses fall on human
+beings they should be killed. Then if Dr. Balguy goes to his other
+argument, on which he often dwells, that if this nature were altered,
+we cannot possibly tell whether worse might not ensue; this, too, is
+assuming a limited power in the Deity, contrary to the hypothesis.
+It may most justly be said, that if there be any one supposition
+necessarily excluded from the whole argument, it is the fundamental
+supposition of the “previous remark,” namely, “all other things
+continuing the same.”
+
+But see how this assumption pervades and paralyzes the whole argument,
+rendering it utterly inconclusive. The author is to answer an objection
+derived from the constitution of our appetites for food, and his reply
+is, that “we cannot tell how far it was _possible_ for the stomachs and
+palates of animals to be differently formed, unless by some remedy worse
+than the disease.” Again, upon the question of pain: “How do we know
+that it was _possible_ for the uneasy sensation to be confined to
+particular cases?” So we meet the same fallacy under another form,
+as evil being the result of “general principles.” But no one has ever
+pushed this so far as Dr. Balguy, for he says, “that in a government so
+conducted, many events are likely to happen contrary to the intention
+of its author.” He now calls in the aid of chance, or accident.--“It is
+probable,” he says, “that God should be good, for evil is more likely
+to be _accidental_ than appears from experience in the conduct of men.”
+ Indeed, his fundamental position of the Deity’s benevolence is rested
+upon this foundation, that “pleasures only were intended, and that
+the pains are accidental consequences, although the means of producing
+pleasures.” The same recourse to accident is repeatedly had. Thus, “the
+events to which we are exposed in this imperfect state appear to be the
+_accidental_, not natural, effects of our frame and condition.” Now can
+any one thing be more manifest than that the very first notion of a wise
+and powerful Being excludes all such assumptions as things happening
+contrary to His intention; and that when we use the word chance or
+accident, which only means our human ignorance of causes, we at once
+give up the whole question, as if we said, “It is a subject about
+which we know nothing.” So again as to power. “A good design is more
+_difficult_ to be executed, and therefore more likely to be executed
+_imperfectly_, than an evil one, that is, with a mixture of effects
+foreign to the design and opposite to it.” This at once assumes the
+Deity to be powerless. But a general statement is afterwards made more
+distinctly to the same effect. “Most sure it is that he can do all
+things possible. But are we in any degree competent judges of the bounds
+of possibility?” So again under another form nature is introduced as
+something different from its author, and offering limits to his
+power. “It is plainly not the method of nature to obtain her ends
+instantaneously.” Passing over such propositions as that “_useless_ evil
+is a thing never seen,” (when the whole question is why the same ends
+were not attained without evil), and a variety of other subordinate
+assumptions contrary to the hypothesis, we may rest with this general
+statement, which almost every page of Dr. Balguy’s book bears out, that
+the question which he has set himself to solve is anything rather than
+the real one touching the Origin of Evil; and that this attempt at
+a solution is as ineffectual as any of those which we have been
+considering.
+
+Is, then, the question wholly incapable of solution, which all these
+learned and ingenious men have so entirely failed in solving? Must
+the difficulty remain forever unsurmounted, and only be approached to
+discover that it is insuperable? _Must the subject, of all others the
+most interesting for us to know well, be to us always as a sealed book,
+of which we can never know anything?_ From the nature of the thing--from
+the question relating to the operation of a power which, to our limited
+faculties, must ever be incomprehensible--there seems too much reason
+for believing that nothing precise or satisfactory ever will be attained
+by human reason regarding this great argument; and that the bounds
+which limit our views will only be passed when we have quitted the
+encumbrances of our mortal state, and are permitted to survey those
+regions beyond the sphere of our present circumscribed existence. The
+other branch of Natural Theology, that which investigates the evidences
+of Intelligence and Design, and leads us to a clear apprehension of the
+Deity’s power and wisdom, is as satisfactorily cultivated as any other
+department of science, rests upon the same species of proof, and affords
+results as precise as they are sublime. This branch will never be
+distinctly known, and will always so disappoint the inquirer as to
+render the lights of Revelation peculiarly acceptable, although
+even those lights leave much of it still involved in darkness--still
+mysterious and obscure.[2]
+
+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.
+
+But it is necessary to proceed a step further, especially with a view
+to the fundamental position now contended for, the extending to the
+question of Benevolence the same principles which we apply to that of
+Intelligence. The evil which exists, or that which we suppose to be
+evil, not only is of a kind and a magnitude requiring inconceivably less
+power and less skill than the admitted good of the creation--it also
+bears a very small proportion in amount; quite as small a proportion
+as the cases of unknown or undiscoverable design bear to those
+of acknowledged and proved contrivance. Generally speaking, the
+preservation and the happiness of sensitive creatures appears to be
+the great object of creative exertion and conservative providence. The
+expanding of our faculties, both bodily and mentally, is accompanied
+with pleasure; the exercise of those powers is almost always attended
+with gratification; all labor so acts as to make rest peculiarly
+delicious; much of labor is enjoyment; the gratification of those
+appetites by which both the individual is preserved and the race is
+continued, is highly pleasurable to all animals; and it must be observed
+that instead of being attracted by grateful sensations to do anything
+requisite for our good or even our existence, we might have been just as
+certainly urged by the feeling of pain, or the dread of it, which is a
+kind of suffering in itself. Nature, then, resembles the law-giver
+who, to make his subjects obey, should prefer holding out rewards
+for compliance with his commands rather than denounce punishments for
+disobedience. But nature is yet more kind; she is gratuitously kind; she
+not only prefers inducement to threat or compulsion, but she adds more
+gratification than was necessary to make us obey her calls. How well
+might all creation have existed and been continued, though the air had
+not been balmy in spring, or the shade and the spring refreshing in
+summer; had the earth not been enamelled with flowers; and the air
+scented with perfumes! How needless for the propagation of plants was
+it that the seed should be enveloped in fruits the most savory to our
+palate, and if those fruits serve some other purpose, how foreign to
+that purpose was the formation of our nerves so framed as to be soothed
+or excited by their flavor! We here perceive design, because we trace
+adaptation. But we at the same time perceive benevolent design, because
+we perceive gratuitous and supererogatory enjoyment bestowed. Thus,
+too, see the care with which animals of all kinds are tended from their
+birth. The mother’s instinct is not more certainly the means of securing
+and providing for her young, than her gratification in the act of
+maternal care is great and is also needless for making her perform that
+duty. The grove is not made vocal during pairing and incubation, in
+order to secure the laying or the hatching of eggs; for if it were as
+still as the grave, or were filled with the most discordant croaking,
+the process would be as well performed. So, too, mark the care with
+which injuries are remedied by what has been correctly called the _vis
+medicatrix_. Is a muscle injured?--Suppuration takes place, the process
+of granulation succeeds, and new flesh is formed to supply the gap, or
+if that is less wide, a more simple healing process knits together
+the severed parts. Is a bone injured?--A process commences by which
+an extraordinary secretion of bony matter takes place, and the void
+is supplied. Nay, the irreparable injury of a joint gives rise to
+the formation of a new hinge, by which the same functions may be not
+inconveniently, though less perfectly, performed. Thus, too, recovery of
+vigor after sickness is provided for by increased appetite; but there
+is here superadded, generally, a feeling of comfort and lightness, an
+enjoyment of existence so delightful, that it is a common remark how
+nearly this compensates the sufferings of the illness. In the economy
+of the mind it is the same thing. All our exertions are stimulated by
+curiosity, and the gratification is extreme of satisfying it. But it
+might have been otherwise ordered, and some painful feeling might have
+been made the only stimulant to the acquisition of knowledge. So, the
+charm of novelty is proverbial; but it might have been the unceasing
+cause of the most painful alarms. Habit renders every thing easy; but
+the repetition might have only increased the annoyance. The loss of one
+organ makes the others more acute. But the partial injury might have
+caused, as it were, a general paralysis. ‘Tis thus that Paley is well
+justified in exclaiming, “It is a happy world after all!” The pains and
+the sufferings, bodily and mental, to which we are exposed, if they
+do not sink into nothing, at least retreat within comparatively narrow
+bounds; the ills are hardly seen when we survey the great and splendid
+picture of worldly enjoyment or ease.
+
+But the existence of considerable misery is undeniable: and the question
+is, of course, confined to that. Its exaggeration, in the ordinary
+estimate both of the vulgar and of skeptical reasoners, is equally
+certain. Paley, Bishop Sumner, as well as Derham, King, Ray and others
+of the older writers, have made many judicious and generally correct
+observations upon its amount, and they, as well as some of the able
+and learned authors of the _Bridgwater Treatises_, have done much in
+establishing deductions necessary to be made, in order that we may
+arrive at the true amount. That many things, apparently unmixed evils,
+when examined more narrowly, prove to be partially beneficial, is the
+fair result of their well-meant labors; and this, although anything
+rather than a proof that there is no evil at all, yet is valuable as
+still further proving the analogy between this branch of the argument
+and that upon design; and in giving hopes that all may possibly be
+found hereafter to be good, as everything will assuredly be found to be
+contrived with an intelligent and useful purpose. It may be right to add
+a remark or two upon some evils, and those of the greatest magnitude
+in the common estimate of human happiness, with a view of further
+illustrating this part of the subject.
+
+Mere imperfection must altogether be deducted from the account. It
+never can be contended that any evil nature can be ascribed to the first
+cause, merely for not having endowed sentient creatures with greater
+power or wisdom, for not having increased and multiplied the sources
+of enjoyment, or for not having made those pleasures which we have more
+exquisitely grateful. No one can be so foolish as to argue that the
+Deity is either limited in power, or deficient in goodness, because he
+has chosen to create some beings of a less perfect order than others.
+The mere negation in the creating of some, indeed of many, nay, of
+any conceivable number of desirable attributes, is therefore no proper
+evidence of evil design or of limited power in the Creator--it is no
+proof of the existence of evil properly so called. But does not this
+also erase death from the catalogue of ills? It might well please the
+Deity to create a mortal being which, consisting of soul and body, was
+only to live upon this earth for a limited number of years. If, when
+that time has expired, this being is removed to another and a superior
+state of existence, no evil whatever accrues to it from the change;
+and all views of the government of this world lead to the important and
+consolitary conclusion, that such is the design of the Creator; that he
+cannot have bestowed on us minds capable of such expansion and culture
+only to be extinguished when they have reached their highest pitch
+of improvement; or if this be considered as begging the question by
+assuming benevolent design, we cannot easily conceive that while the
+mind’s force is so little affected by the body’s decay, the destruction
+or dissolution of the latter should be the extinction of the former. But
+that death operates as an evil of the very highest kind in two ways is
+obvious; the dread of it often embitters life, and the death of friends
+brings to the mind by far its most painful infliction; certainly the
+greatest suffering it can undergo without any criminal consciousness of
+its own.
+
+For this evil, then--this grievous and admitted evil--how shall we
+account? But first let us consider whether it be not unavoidable; not
+merely under the present dispensation, and in the existing state of
+things; for that is wholly irrelevant to the question which is raised
+upon the fitness of this very state of things; but whether it be not a
+necessary evil. That man might have been created immortal is not denied;
+but if it were the will of the Deity to form a limited being and to
+place him upon the earth for only a certain period of time, his death
+was the necessary consequence of this determination. Then as to the pain
+which one person’s removal inflicts upon surviving parties, this seems
+the equally necessary consequence of their having affections. For if
+any being feels love towards another, this implies his desire that the
+intercourse with that other should continue; or what is the same thing,
+the repugnance and aversion to its ceasing; that is, he must suffer
+affliction for that removal of the beloved object. To create sentient
+beings devoid of all feelings of affection was no doubt possible to
+Omnipotence; but to endow those beings with such feelings as would give
+the constant gratification derived from the benevolent affections, and
+yet to make them wholly indifferent to the loss of the objects of those
+affections, was not possible even for Omnipotence; because it was a
+contradiction in terms, equivalent to making a thing both exist and not
+exist at one and the same time. Would there have been any considerable
+happiness in a life stripped of these kindly affections? We cannot
+affirm that there would not, because we are ignorant what other
+enjoyments might have been substituted for the indulgence of them. But
+neither can we affirm that any such substitution could have been found;
+and it lies upon those who deny the necessary connection between the
+human mind, or any sentient being’s mind, and grief for the loss of
+friends, to show that there are other enjoyments which could furnish an
+equivalent to the gratification derived from the benevolent feelings.
+The question then reduces itself to this: Wherefore did a being, who
+could have made sentient beings immortal, choose to make them mortal?
+or, Wherefore has he placed man upon the earth for a time only? or,
+Wherefore has he set bounds to the powers and capacities which he has
+been pleased to bestow upon his creatures? And this is a question which
+we certainly never shall be able to solve; but a question extremely
+different from the one more usually put--How happens it that a good
+being has made a world full of misery and death?
+
+In the necessary ignorance wherein we are of the whole designs of the
+Deity, we cannot wonder if some things, nay, if many things, are to our
+faculties inscrutable. But we assuredly have no right to say that those
+difficulties which try and vex us are incapable of a solution, any more
+than we have to say, that those cases in which as yet we can see no
+trace of design, are not equally the result of intelligence, and equally
+conducive to a fixed and useful purpose with those in which we have been
+able to perceive the whole, or nearly the whole scheme. Great as have
+been our achievements in physical astronomy, we are as yet wholly unable
+to understand why a power pervades the system acting inversely as the
+squares of the distance from the point to which it attracts, rather
+than a power acting according to any other law; and why it has been the
+pleasure of the almighty Architect of that universe, that the orbits
+of the planets should be nearly circular instead of approaching to, or
+being exactly the same with many other trajectories of a nearly similar
+form, though of other properties; nay, instead of being curves of a
+wholly different class and shape. Yet we never doubt that there was a
+reason for this choice; nay, we fancy it possible that even on earth
+we may hereafter understand it more clearly than we now do: and never
+question that in another state of being we may be permitted to enjoy the
+contemplation of it. Why should we doubt that, at least in that higher
+state, we may also be enabled to perceive such an arrangement as shall
+make evil wholly disappear from our present system, by showing that it
+was necessary and inevitable, even in the works of the Deity; or, which
+is the same thing, that its existence conduces to such a degree
+of perfection and happiness upon, the whole, as could not, even by
+Omnipotence, be attained without it; or, which is the same thing,
+that the whole creation as it exists, taking both worlds together, is
+perfect, and incapable of being in any particular changed without being
+made worse and less perfect? Taking both worlds together--For certainly
+were our views limited to the present sublunary state, we may well
+affirm that no solution whatever could even be imagined of the
+difficulty--if we are never again to live; if those we here loved are
+forever lost to us; if our faculties can receive no further expansion;
+if our mental powers are only trained and improved to be extinguished
+at their acme--then indeed are we reduced to the melancholy and gloomy
+dilemma of the Epicureans; and evil is confessed to checker, nay, almost
+to cloud over our whole lot, without the possibility of comprehending
+why, or of reconciling its existence with the supposition of a
+providence at once powerful and good. But this inference is also an
+additional argument for a future state, when we couple it with these
+other conclusions respecting the economy of the world to which we are
+led by wholly different routes, when we investigate the phenomena around
+us and within us.
+
+Suppose, for example, it should be found that there are certain purposes
+which can in no way whatever--no conceivable way--be answered except
+by placing man in a state of trial or probation; suppose the essential
+nature of mind shall be found to be such that it could not in any
+way whatever exist so as to be capable of the greatest purity and
+improvement--in other words, the highest perfection--without having
+undergone a probation; or suppose it should be found impossible to
+communicate certain enjoyments to rational and sentient beings
+without having previously subjected them to certain trials and certain
+sufferings--as, for instance, the pleasures derived from a consciousness
+of perfect security, the certainty that we can suffer and perish no
+more--this surely is a possible supposition. Now, to continue the last
+example--Whatever pleasure there is in the contrast between ease and
+previous vexation or pain, whatever enjoyment we derive from the feeling
+of absolute security after the vexation and uncertainty of a precarious
+state, implies a previous suffering--a previous state of precarious
+enjoyment; and not only implies it but necessarily implies it, so that
+the power of Omnipotence itself could not convey to us the enjoyment
+without having given us the previous suffering. Then is it not possible
+that the object of an all powerful and perfectly benevolent being should
+be to create like beings, to whom as entire happiness, as complete and
+perfect enjoyment, should be given as any created beings--that is, any
+being, except the Creator himself--can by possibility enjoy? This is
+certainly not only a very possible supposition, but it appears to be
+quite consistent with, if it be not a necessary consequence of, his
+being perfectly good as well as powerful and wise. Now we have shown,
+therefore, that such being supposed the design of Providence, even
+Omnipotence itself could not accomplish this design, as far as one great
+and important class of enjoyments is concerned, without the previous
+existence of some pain, some misery. Whatever gratification arises
+from relief--from contrast--from security succeeding anxiety--from
+restoration of lost affections--from renewing severed connections--and
+many others of a like kind, could not by any possibility be enjoyed
+unless the correlative suffering had first been undergone. Nor will the
+argument be at all impeached by observing, that one Being may be made
+to feel the pleasure of ease and security by seeing others subjected
+to suffering and distress; for that assumes the infliction of misery on
+those others; it is “_alterius_ spectare laborem” that we are supposing
+to be sweet; and this is still partial evil.
+
+As the whole argument respecting evil must, from the nature of the
+question, resolve itself into either a proof of some absolute or
+mathematical necessity not to be removed by infinite power, or the
+showing that some such proof may be possible although we have not
+yet discovered it, an illustration may naturally be expected to be
+attainable from mathematical considerations. Thus, we have already
+adverted to the law of periodical irregularities in the solar system.
+Any one before it was discovered seemed entitled to expatiate upon the
+operation of the disturbing forces arising from mutual attraction,
+and to charge the system arranged upon the principle of universal
+gravitation with want of skill, nay, with leading to inevitable
+mischief--mischief or evil of so prodigious an extent as to exceed
+incalculably all the instances of evil and of suffering which we see
+around us in this single planet. Nevertheless, what then appeared so
+clearly to be a defect and an evil, is now well known to be the very
+absolute perfection of the whole heavenly architecture.
+
+Again, we may derive a similar illustration from a much more limited
+instance, but one immediately connected with strict mathematical
+reasoning, and founded altogether in the nature of necessary truth. The
+problem has been solved by mathematicians, Sir Isaac Newton having first
+investigated it, of finding the form of a symmetrical solid, or solid of
+revolution, which in moving through a fluid shall experience the least
+possible resistance. The figure bears a striking resemblance to that of
+a fish. Now suppose a fish were formed exactly in this shape, and
+that some animal endowed with reason were placed upon a portion of its
+surface, and able to trace its form for only a limited extent, say at
+the narrow part, where the broad portion or end of the moving body were
+opposed, or seemed as if it were opposed, to the surrounding fluid when
+the fish moved--the reasoner would at once conclude that the contrivance
+of the fish’s form was very inconvenient, and that nothing could be much
+worse adapted for expeditious or easy movement through the waters.
+
+Yet it is certain that upon being afterwards permitted to view THE WHOLE
+body of the fish, what had seemed a defect and an evil, not only would
+appear plainly to be none at all, but it would appear manifest that
+this seeming evil or defect was a part of the most perfect and excellent
+structure which it was possible even for Omnipotence and Omniscience
+to have adopted, and that no other conceivable arrangement could by
+possibility have produced so much advantage, or tended so much to
+fulfill the design in view. Previous to being enlightened by such
+an enlarged view of the whole facts, it would thus be a rash and
+unphilosophical thing in the reasoner whose existence we are supposing
+to pronounce an unfavorable opinion. Still more unwise would it be if
+numerous other observations had evinced traces of skill and goodness
+in the fish’s structure. The true and the safe conclusion would be to
+suspend an opinion which could only be unsatisfactorily formed upon
+imperfect data; and to rest in the humble hope and belief that one day
+all would appear for the best.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+
+
+[Footnote 1: The “light of revelation,” as well as the “light of the
+Christian religion,” has not dispelled the darkness of ignorance. The
+torch of reason is a surer guide.--_Pub._]
+
+[Footnote 2: The human race has from time immemorial been afflicted with
+so-called revelations, all claiming inspiration, all conflicting, and
+all being equally “mysterious and obscure.” The wars arising among these
+sectarians have retarded civilization, and deluged the earth in blood.
+The revelations of science, founded upon reason and demonstration, have
+proved the only safe and beneficent guide.--_Pub._]
+
+[Footnote 3: While it is true that the argument of Design, here given,
+places the subject one step in advance, it is still unsatisfactory,
+because it fails to explain to us who designed the designer, and the
+mystery of creation still remains unsolved.
+
+“What think you of an uncaused cause of everything?” is the pertinent
+question which Bishop Watson, in his _Apology for the Bible_, asked, and
+vainly asked, of the celebrated deist, Thomas Paine.--_Pub._]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation
+on the Origin of Evil, by E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
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