On the Origin of Evil.
IT has often been asked, how there should be so much sin and suffering, or so much vice and misery, in a world created and governed by a God of infinite wisdom and goodness. We do not know that a satisfactory answer has ever been given to this most difficult question ; and in agitating the subject at present, we are far from enter taining the hope that we shall be able fully to resolve this nodue in the divine economy. The question, how ever, in one form or another, is indispensable in all dis cussions on morals: and, though much must necessa rily remain unexplained, from the present imperfection of our faculties, we do not despair of removing the dif ficulty at least some steps farther back, or perhaps of carrying it to the point where acquiescence in the in scrutable will of heaven must put an end to our re searches.
The NIanichxan notion of two eternal, independent principles, the one good, and the other evil, was very early and extensively received in the East. According to this notion, there was a continual contest between these two principles, and their power was so equally ba lanced that neither of them could obtain a decided supe riority : hence resulted that mixed state of vice and vir tue, misery and happiness, so observable in the history of the world, and particularly in the life of man. They must have had very little philosophical observation who could rest satisfied with this clumsy hypothesis; for it is perfectly apparent, that all the physical evils at least (and these were the evils chiefly regarded in this scheme,) are not only reconcileable with the perfections of a wise and good Being, but are absolute indications of his wis dom and goodness in the present state of man.
A more modern hypothesis represents the existence of evil as necessarily arising out of the intractableness and imperfection of matter ; from which qualities, some degree of imperfection and evil must be attached to every created thing.* This is intended as a vindication of the Creator : but even granting the premises, it does not answer the purpose ; unless it could at the same time be shown, that God was under the necessity of acting, and of calling the world, as we now find it, into exist ence. For if the Deity had free-will and prescience, it
would still remain to be shown, why he gave birth to creation, which must necessarily issue in evil and misery.
The only satisfactory answer to this is, that the evils we deplore are productive of good on the whole, and are essential to the moral discipline of man.
Pope, in attempting to vindicate the ways of God to man, has introduced a very gratuitous and inartificial hypothesis into his celebrated essay. He takes it for granted, that there is a regular gradation of existence rising through every possible variety, and that, there fore, there must be such a creature as man, and such a world as this.
Of systems possible, if 'tis contest That wisdom infinite must make the best, Where all must fall, or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree ; Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain There must be somewhere such a rank as man This reasoning, if reasoning it can be called, is then confirmed by another hypothesis, in which it is assumed, or insinuated, that our present state of being has a re ference to some other sphere, or system, as yet un known. The reader must not suppose that this has any allusion to the commonly received doctrine of a future state. Nothing could be farther from the mind of the writer : he speaks of some system to whose con s enience we are, at this moment, unconsciously subser vient. This is evident from what he subjoins to his former reasoning.
So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown ; Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal ; 'Tis but a part we sec, and not the whole., It would be unfair to be very severe on this poetical system of the universe, in which splendid imagery and most beautiful versification make some atonement for the grievous deficiency of logical precision ; and which is in fact not worse than a hundred other schemes which have been invented to account for the same thing. It is sufficient to say, that it consists wholly of gratuitous assumptions.