Why does man exist ? : the continuation and conclusion of Whence comes man ? / by Arthur John Bell.

  • Bell, Arthur John.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Why does man exist ? : the continuation and conclusion of Whence comes man ? / by Arthur John Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/450 (page 11)
    predestined by providence, and is a fidjilment of its desiynsy Page 112.—. . It is impossible that any one who habitually thinks, and who is nnable to blunt his incpiiring intellect by sophistry, should be able without misgiving to go on ascribing absolute perfection to the author and rnler of so clumsily made and capriciously governed a creation as this planet and the life of its inhabitants. Tlie adoration of snch a being cannot be with the whole heart, unless the heart is first considerably sojdiisticated. The worship must either be greatly overclouded by donbt, and occasionally fpiite darkened by it, or the moral sentiments must sink to the low level of the ordinances of nature ; the worshipper must learn to think blind particdity, atrocious cruelty, and reckless injustice not blemishes in an object of worship, since all these abound to excess in the commonest phenomena, of nature.’’'’ In this awful indictment there seems to be no flaw. If, as I have endeavoured to show, both “ nature ” and man ” owe their existence to Grod, and are as they are because He so made, so constituted them, how conld they possibly—even to the smallest extent—act otherwise than they do ? And the inference to be drawn would seem to be that the Creator must be a malevolent being. It has been conjectured by some that it is possible God did the best that conld be done with the materials ont of which He constructed nature and man, and that the imperfections were not the result of a malicious intention to produce pain and miserv. Mr. Mill thinks that a careful stndv of “ desio-n,” as exi)ressed in nature by the wonderful manner in which some arrangements of things are adapted to particular and l)eneflcial ends, indicates some consideration for the well- being of the living creatures He has created. But for ns, who have been compelled to believe tliat God created all that which He “ arranged,” no snch 2iallin.tion is possible. We are com2)elled to consider all the results of the various