Through Nature to God Part 2

When one has sufficiently recovered one's gravity, it is permissible to reply to such criticisms that the sharp ant.i.thesis between good and evil is essential to every step of my argument, which would entirely collapse if the antagonism were for one moment disregarded. The quant.i.ty of suffering in the world is unquestionably so great as to prompt us to do all in our power to diminish it; such we shall presently see must be the case in a world that proceeds through stages of evolution. When one reverently a.s.sumes that it was through some all-wise and holy purpose that sin was permitted to come into the world, it ought to be quite superfluous to add that the fulfilment of any such purpose demands that sin be not cherished, but suppressed. If one seeks, as a philosopher, to explain and justify G.o.d's wholesale use of death in the general economy of the universe, is one forsooth to be charged with praising murder as a fine art and with seeking to found a society of Thugs?

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VIII

_The Hermit and the Angel_

The simple-hearted monks of the Middle Ages understood, in their own quaint way, that G.o.d's methods of governing this universe are not always fit to be imitated by his finite creatures. In one of the old stories that furnished entertainment and instruction for the cloister it is said that a hermit and an angel once journeyed together. The angel was in human form and garb, but had told his companion the secret of his exalted rank and nature. Coming at nightfall to a humble house by the wayside, the two travellers craved shelter for the love of G.o.d. A dainty supper and a soft, warm bed were given them, and in the middle of the night the angel arose and strangled the kind host's infant son, who was quietly sleeping in his cradle. The good hermit was paralyzed with amazement and horror, but dared not speak a word. The next night the two comrades were entertained at a fine mansion in the city, where the angel stole the superb golden cup from which his host had quaffed wine at dinner. Next day, while crossing the bridge over a deep and rapid stream, a pilgrim met the travellers. "Canst thou show us, good father,"

said the angel, "the way to the next town?" As the pilgrim turned to point it out, this terrible being caught him by the shoulder and flung him into the river to drown. "Verily," thought the poor hermit, "it is a devil that I have here with me, and all his works are evil;" but fear held his tongue, and the twain fared on their way till the sun had set and snow began to fall, and the howling of wolves was heard in the forest hard by. Presently the bright light coming from a cheerful window gave hope of a welcome refuge; but the surly master of the house turned the travellers away from his door with curses and foul gibes. "Yonder is my pig-sty for dirty vagrants like you." So they pa.s.sed that night among the swine; and in the morning the angel went to the house and thanked the master for his hospitality, and gave him for a keepsake (thrifty angel!) the stolen goblet. Then did the hermit's wrath and disgust overcome his fears, and he loudly upbraided his companion. "Get thee gone, wretched spirit!" he cried. "I will have no more of thee.

Thou pretendest to be a messenger from heaven, yet thou requitest good with evil, and evil with good!" Then did the angel look upon him with infinite compa.s.sion in his eyes. "Listen," said he, "short-sighted mortal. The birth of that infant son had made the father covetous, breaking G.o.d's commandments in order to heap up treasures which the boy, if he had lived, would have wasted in idle debauchery. By my act, which seemed so cruel, I saved both parent and child. The owner of the goblet had once been abstemious, but was fast becoming a sot; the loss of his cup has set him to thinking, and he will mend his ways. The poor pilgrim, unknown to himself, was about to commit a mortal sin, when I interfered and sent his unsullied soul to heaven. As for the wretch who drove G.o.d's children from his door, he is, indeed, pleased for the moment with the bauble I left in his hands; but hereafter he will burn in h.e.l.l." So spoke the angel; and when he had heard these words the hermit bowed his venerable head and murmured, "Forgive me, Lord, that in my ignorance I misjudged thee."

I suspect that, with all our boasted science, there is still much wisdom for us in the humble childlike piety of the Gesta Romanorum. To say that the ways of Providence are inscrutable is still something more than an idle plat.i.tude, and there still is room for the belief that, could we raise the veil that enshrouds eternal truth, we should see that behind nature's cruelest works there are secret springs of divinest tenderness and love. In this trustful mood we may now return to the question as to the genesis of the idea of moral evil, and its close connection with man's rise from a state of primeval innocence.

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IX

_Man's Rise from the Innocence of Brutehood_

We have first to note that in various ways the action of natural selection has been profoundly modified in the course of the development of mankind from a race of inferior creatures. One of the chief factors in the production of man was the change that occurred in the direction of the working of natural selection, whereby in the line of man's direct ancestry the variations in intelligence came to be seized upon, cherished, and enhanced, to the comparative neglect of variations in bodily structure. The physical differences between man and ape are less important than the physical differences between African and South American apes. The latter belong to different zoological families, but the former do not. Zoologically, man is simply one genus in the old-world family of apes. Psychologically, he has travelled so far from apes that the distance is scarcely measurable. This transcendent contrast is primarily due to the change in the direction of the working of natural selection. The consequences of this change were numerous and far-reaching. One consequence was that gradual lengthening of the plastic period of infancy which enabled man to became a progressive creature, and organized the primeval semi-human horde into definite family groups. I have elsewhere expounded this point, and it is known as my own especial contribution to the theory of evolution.

Another a.s.sociated consequence, which here more closely concerns us, was the partial stoppage of the process of natural selection in remedying unfitness. A quotation from Herbert Spencer will help us to understand this partial stoppage: "As fast as the faculties are multiplied, so fast does it become possible for the several members of a species to have various kinds of superiorities over one another. While one saves its life by higher speed, another does the like by clearer vision, another by keener scent, another by quicker hearing, another by greater strength, another by unusual power of enduring cold or hunger, another by special sagacity, another by special timidity, another by special courage.... Now ... each of these attributes, giving its possessor an extra chance of life, is likely to be transmitted to posterity. But" it is not nearly so likely to be increased by natural selection. For "if those members of the species which have but ordinary" or even deficient shares of some valuable attribute "nevertheless survive by virtue of other superiorities which they severally possess, then it is not easy to see how this particular attribute can be" enhanced in subsequent generations by natural selection.[2]

These considerations apply especially to the human race with its mult.i.tudinous capacities, and I can better explain the case by a crude and imperfect ill.u.s.tration than by a detailed and elaborate statement.

If an individual antelope falls below the average of the herd in speed, he is sure to become food for lions, and thus the high average of speed in the herd is maintained by natural selection. But if an individual man becomes a drunkard, though his capabilities be ever so much curtailed by this vice, yet the variety of human faculty furnishes so many hooks with which to keep one's hold upon life that he may sin long and flagrantly without peris.h.i.+ng; and if the drunkard survives, the action of natural selection in weeding out drunkenness is checked. There is thus a wide interval between the highest and lowest degrees of completeness in living that are compatible with maintenance of life. Mankind has so many other qualities beside the bad ones, which enable it to subsist and achieve progress in spite of them, that natural selection--which always works through death--cannot come into play.

Now it is because of this _interval_ between the highest and lowest degrees of completeness of living that are compatible with the mere maintenance of life, that men can be distinguished as morally bad or morally good. In inferior animals, where there is no such interval, there is no developed morality or conscience, though in a few of the higher ones there are the germs of these things. Morality comes upon the scene when there is an alternative offered of leading better lives or worse lives. And just as up to this point the actions of the forefathers of mankind have been determined by the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, so now they begin to be practically determined by the pursuit of goodness and avoidance of evil. This rise from a b.e.s.t.i.a.l to a moral plane of existence involves the acquirement of the knowledge of good and evil. Conscience is generated to play a part a.n.a.logous to that played by the sense of pain in the lower stages of life, and to keep us from wrong doing. To the mere love of life, which is the conservative force that keeps the whole animal world in existence, there now comes gradually to be superadded the feeling of religious aspiration, which is nothing more nor less than the yearning after the highest possible completeness of spiritual life. In the lower stages of human development this religious aspiration has as yet but an embryonic existence, and moral obligations are still but imperfectly recognized. It is only after long ages of social discipline, fraught with cruel afflictions and grinding misery, that the moral law becomes dominant and religious aspiration intense and abiding in the soul. When such a stage is reached, we have at last in man a creature different in kind from his predecessors, and fit for an everlasting life of progress, for a closer and closer communion with G.o.d in beat.i.tude that shall endure.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Biology, i. 454.

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X

_The Relativity of Evil_

As we survey the course of this wonderful evolution, it begins to become manifest that moral evil is simply the characteristic of the lower state of living as looked at from the higher state. Its existence is purely relative, yet it is profoundly real, and in a process of perpetual spiritual evolution its presence in some hideous form throughout a long series of upward stages is indispensable. Its absence would mean stagnation, quiescence, unprogressiveness. For the moment we exercise conscious choice between one course of action and another, we recognize the difference between better and worse, we foreshadow the whole grand contrast between good and bad. In the process of spiritual evolution, therefore, evil must needs be present. But the nature of evolution also requires that it should be evanescent. In the higher stages that which is worse than the best need no longer be positively bad. After the nature of that which the upward-striving soul abhors has been forever impressed upon it, amid the long vicissitudes of its pilgrimage through the dark realms of sin and expiation, it is at length equipped for its final sojourn

"In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love."

From the general a.n.a.logies furnished in the process of evolution, we are ent.i.tled to hope that, as it approaches its goal and man comes nearer to G.o.d, the fact of evil will lapse into a mere memory, in which the shadowed past shall serve as a background for the realized glory of the present.

Thus we have arrived at the goal of my argument. We can at least begin to realize distinctly that unless our eyes had been opened at some time, so that we might come to know the good and the evil, we should never have become fas.h.i.+oned in G.o.d's image. We should have been the denizens of a world of puppets, where neither morality nor religion could have found place or meaning. The mystery of evil remains a mystery still, but it is no longer a harsh dissonance such as greeted the poet's ear when the doors of h.e.l.l were thrown open; for we see that this mystery belongs among the profound harmonies in G.o.d's creation. This reflection may have in it something that is consoling as we look forth upon the ills of the world. Many are the pains of life, and the struggle with wickedness is hard; its course is marked with sorrow and tears. But a.s.suredly its deep impress upon the human soul is the indispensable background against which shall be set hereafter the eternal joys of heaven!

THE COSMIC ROOTS OF LOVE AND SELF-SACRIFICE

O abbondante grazia, ond' io presunsi Ficcar lo viso per la luce eterna Tanto, che la veduta vi consunsi!

Nel suo profondo vidi che s' interna, Legato con amore in un volume, Ci che per l' universo si squaderna.

DANTE, _Paradiso_, x.x.xiii. 82.

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I

_The Summer Field, and what it tells us_

There are few sights in Nature more restful to the soul than a daisied field in June. Whether it be at the dewy hour of sunrise, with blithe matin songs still echoing among the treetops, or while the luxuriant splendour of noontide fills the delicate tints of the early foliage with a pure glory of light, or in that more pensive time when long shadows are thrown eastward and the fresh breath of the sea is felt, or even under the solemn mantle of darkness, when all forms have faded from sight and the night air is musical with the murmurs of innumerable insects, amid all the varying moods through which the daily cycle runs, the abiding sense is of unalloyed happiness, the profound tranquillity of mind and heart that nothing ever brings save the contemplation of perfect beauty. One's thought is carried back for the moment to that morning of the world when G.o.d looked upon his work and saw that it was good. If in the infinite and eternal Creative Energy one might imagine some inherent impulse perpetually urging toward fresh creation, what could it be more likely to be than the divine contentment in giving objective existence to the boundless and subtle harmonies whereof our world is made? That it is a world of perfect harmony and unsullied beauty, who can doubt as he strolls through this summer field? As our thought plays lightly with its sights and sounds, there is nothing but gladness in the laugh of the bobolink; the thrush's tender note tells only of the sweet domestic companions.h.i.+p of the nest; creeping and winged things emerging from their grubs fill us with the sense of abounding life; and the myriad b.u.t.tercups, hallowed with vague memories of June days in childhood, lose none of their charm in reminding us of the profound sympathy and mutual dependence in which the worlds of flowers and insects have grown up. The blades of waving gra.s.s, the fluttering leaves upon the lilac bush, appeal to us with rare fascination; for the green stuff that fills their cellular tissues, and the tissues of all green things that grow, is the world's great inimitable worker of wonders; its marvellous alchemy takes dead matter and breathes into it the breath of life. But for that magician chlorophyll, conjuring with sunbeams, such things as animal life and conscious intelligence would be impossible; there would be no problems of creation, nor philosopher to speculate upon them. Thus the delight that sense impression gives, as we wander among b.u.t.tercups and daisies, becomes deepened into grat.i.tude and veneration, till we quite understand how the rejuvenescence of Nature should in all ages have aroused men to acts of wors.h.i.+p, and should call forth from modern masters of music, the most religious of the arts of expression, outbursts of sublimest song.

And yet we need but come a little closer to the facts to find them apparently telling us a very different story. The moment we penetrate below the superficial aspect of things the scene is changed. In the folklore of Ireland there is a widespread belief in a fairyland of eternal hope and brightness and youth situated a little way below the roots of the gra.s.s. From that land of Tir nan Og, as the peasants call it, the secret springs of life shoot forth their scions in this visible world, and thither a few favoured mortals have now and then found their way. It is into no blest country of Tir nan Og that our stern science leads us, but into a scene of ugliness and hatred, strife and ma.s.sacre.

Macaulay tells of the battlefield of Neerwinden, that the next summer after that frightful slaughter the whole countryside was densely covered with scarlet poppies, which people beheld with awe as a token of wrath in heaven over the deeds wrought on earth by human pa.s.sions. Any summer field, though mantled in softest green, is the scene of butchery as wholesale as that of Neerwinden and far more ruthless. The life of its countless tiny denizens is one of unceasing toil, of crowding and jostling, where the weaker fall unpitied by the way, of starvation from hunger and cold, of robbery utterly shameless and murder utterly cruel.

That green sward in taking possession of its territory has exterminated scores of flowering plants of the sort that human economics and aesthetics stigmatize as weeds; nor do the blades of the victorious army dwell side by side in amity, but in their eagerness to dally with the sunbeams thrust aside and supplant one another without the smallest compunction. Of the crawling insects and those that hum through the air, with the quaint snail, the burrowing worm, the bloated toad, scarce one in a hundred but succ.u.mbs to the buffets of adverse fortune before it has achieved maturity and left offspring to replace it. The early bird, who went forth in quest of the worm, was lucky if at the close of a day as full of strife and peril as ever knight-errant encountered, he did not himself serve as a meal for some giant foe in the gloaming. When we think of the hawk's talons buried in the breast of the wren, while the relentless beak tears the little wings from the quivering, bleeding body, our mood toward Nature is changed, and we feel like recoiling from a world in which such black injustice, such savage disregard for others, is part of the general scheme.