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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fallen Star, by E. L. Bulwer
+
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+Title: The Fallen Star
+
+Author: E. L. Bulwer
+
+Title: A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil
+
+Author: Lord Brougham
+
+Release Date: August, 2005  [EBook #8654]
+[This file was first posted on July 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE FALLEN STAR ***
+
+
+
+
+E-text prepared 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
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF A FALSE RELIGION.
+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
+coummuned 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 be fell
+dead at the month 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, wantors 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 councels 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, be 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 be 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 be 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.
+
+----------------------------
+[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._
+
+[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._
+
+[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._
+
+
+
+
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