This is a treatise, consisting of six letters, upon a very difficult and
important question, which, I am afraid, this author's endeavours will
not free from the perplexity which has entangled the speculatists of all
ages, and which must always continue while _we see_ but _in part_. He
calls it a _Free Enquiry_, and, indeed, his _freedom_ is, I think,
greater than his modesty. Though he is far from the contemptible
arrogance, or the impious licentiousness of Bolingbroke, yet he decides,
too easily, upon questions out of the reach of human determination, with
too little consideration of mortal weakness, and with too much vivacity
for the necessary caution.
In the first letter, on evil in general, he observes, that, "it is the
solution of this important question, whence came _evil_? alone, that can
ascertain the moral characteristic of God, without which there is an end
of all distinction between good and evil." Yet he begins this inquiry by
this declaration: "That there is a supreme being, infinitely powerful,
wise, and benevolent, the great creator and preserver of all things, is
a truth so clearly demonstrated, that it shall be here taken for
granted." What is this, but to say, that we have already reason to grant
the existence of those attributes of God, which the present inquiry is
designed to prove? The present inquiry is, then, surely made to no
purpose. The attributes, to the demonstration of which the solution of
this great question is necessary, have been demonstrated, without any
solution, or by means of the solution of some former writer.
He rejects the Manichean system, but imputes to it an absurdity, from
which, amidst all its absurdities, it seems to be free, and adopts the
system of Mr. Pope. "That pain is no evil, if asserted with regard to
the individuals who suffer it, is downright nonsense; but if considered
as it affects the universal system, is an undoubted truth, and means
only, that there is no more pain in it, than what is necessary to the
production of happiness. How many soever of these evils, then, force
themselves into the creation, so long as the good preponderates, it is a
work well worthy of infinite wisdom and benevolence; and,
notwithstanding the imperfections of its parts, the whole is, most
undoubtedly, perfect." And, in the former part of the letter, he gives
the principle of his system in these words: "Omnipotence cannot work
contradictions; it can only effect all possible things. But so little
are we acquainted with the whole system of nature, that we know not what
are possible, and what are not; but if we may judge from that constant
mixture of pain with pleasure, and inconveniency with advantage, which
we must observe in every thing around us, we have reason to conclude,
that, to endue created beings with perfection, that is, to produce good,
exclusive of evil, is one of those impossibilities, which even infinite
power cannot accomplish."
This is elegant and acute, but will by no means calm discontent, or
silence curiosity; for, whether evil can be wholly separated from good
or not, it is plain, that they may be mixed, in various degrees, and, as
far as human eyes can judge, the degree of evil might have been less,
without any impediment to good.
The second letter, on the evils of imperfection, is little more than a
paraphrase of Pope's epistles, or, yet less than a paraphrase, a mere
translation of poetry into prose. This is, surely, to attack difficulty
with very disproportionate abilities, to cut the Gordian knot with very
blunt instruments. When we are told of the insufficiency of former
solutions, why is one of the latest, which no man can have forgotten,
given us again? I am told, that this pamphlet is not the effort of
hunger; what can it be, then, but the product of vanity? and yet, how
can vanity be gratified by plagiarism or transcription? When this
speculatist finds himself prompted to another performance, let him
consider, whether he is about to disburden his mind, or employ his
fingers; and, if I might venture to offer him a subject, I should wish,
that he would solve this question: Why he, that has nothing to write,
should desire to be a writer?
Yet is not this letter without some sentiments, which, though not new,
are of great importance, and may be read, with pleasure, in the
thousandth repetition.
"Whatever we enjoy, is purely a free gift from our creator; but, that we
enjoy no more, can never, sure, be deemed an injury, or a just reason to
question his infinite benevolence. All our happiness is owing to his
goodness; but, that it is no greater, is owing only to ourselves; that
is, to our not having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to
any existence at all. This is no more to be imputed to God, than the
wants of a beggar to the person who has relieved him: that he had
something, was owing to his benefactor; but that he had no more, only to
his own original poverty."
Thus far he speaks what every man must approve, and what every wise man
has said before him. He then gives us the system of subordination, not
invented, for it was known, I think, to the Arabian metaphysicians, but
adopted by Pope, and, from him, borrowed by the diligent researches of
this great investigator.
"No system can possibly be formed, even in imagination, without a
subordination of parts. Every animal body must have different members,
subservient to each other; every picture must be composed of various
colours, and of light and shade; all harmony must be formed of trebles,
tenours, and bases; every beautiful and useful edifice must consist of
higher and lower, more and less magnificent apartments. This is in the
very essence of all created things, and, therefore, cannot be prevented,
by any means whatever, unless by not creating them at all."
These instances are used, instead of Pope's oak and weeds, or Jupiter
and his satellites; but neither Pope, nor this writer, have much
contributed to solve the difficulty. Perfection, or imperfection, of
unconscious beings has no meaning, as referred to themselves; the base
and the treble are equally perfect; the mean and magnificent apartments
feel no pleasure or pain from the comparison. Pope might ask the weed,
why it was less than the oak? but the weed would never ask the question
for itself. The base and treble differ only to the hearer, meanness and
magnificence only to the inhabitant. There is no evil but must inhere in
a conscious being, or be referred to it; that is, evil must be felt,
before it is evil. Yet, even on this subject, many questions might be
offered, which human understanding has not yet answered, and which the
present haste of this extract will not suffer me to dilate.
He proceeds to an humble detail of Pope's opinion: "The universe is a
system, whose very essence consists in subordination; a scale of beings
descending, by insensible degrees, from infinite perfection to absolute
nothing; in which, though we may justly expect to find perfection in the
whole, could we possibly comprehend it; yet would it be the highest
absurdity to hope for it in all its parts, because the beauty and
happiness of the whole depend altogether on the just inferiority of its
parts; that is, on the comparative imperfections of the several beings
of which it is composed.
"It would have been no more an instance of God's wisdom to have created
no beings, but of the highest and most perfect order, than it would be
of a painter's art to cover his whole piece with one single colour, the
most beautiful he could compose. Had he confined himself to such,
nothing could have existed but demi-gods, or archangels, and, then, all
inferior orders must have been void and uninhabited; but as it is,
surely, more agreeable to infinite benevolence, that all these should be
filled up with beings capable of enjoying happiness themselves, and
contributing to that of others, they must, necessarily, be filled with
inferior beings; that is, with such as are less perfect, but from whose
existence, notwithstanding that less perfection, more felicity, upon the
whole, accrues to the universe, than if no such had been created. It is,
moreover, highly probable, that there is such a connexion between all
ranks and orders, by subordinate degrees, that they mutually support
each other's existence, and every one, in its place, is absolutely
necessary towards sustaining the whole vast and magnificent fabric.
"Our pretences for complaint could be of this only, that we are not so
high in the scale of existence as our ignorant ambition may desire; a
pretence which must eternally subsist, because, were we ever so much
higher, there would be still room for infinite power to exalt us; and,
since no link in the chain can be broke, the same reason for disquiet
must remain to those who succeed to that chasm, which must be occasioned
by our preferment. A man can have no reason to repine, that he is not an
angel; nor a horse, that he is not a man; much less, that, in their
several stations, they possess not the faculties of another; for this
would be an insufferable misfortune."
This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of
existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always
left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty.
That every being not infinite, compared with infinity, must be
imperfect, is evident to intuition; that, whatever is imperfect must
have a certain line which it cannot pass, is equally certain. But the
reason which determined this limit, and for which such being was
suffered to advance thus far, and no farther, we shall never be able to
discern. Our discoverers tell us, the creator has made beings of all
orders, and that, therefore, one of them must be such as man; but this
system seems to be established on a concession, which, if it be refused,
cannot be extorted.
Every reason which can be brought to prove, that there are beings of
every possible sort, will prove, that there is the greatest number
possible of every sort of beings; but this, with respect to man, we
know, if we know any thing, not to be true.
It does not appear, even to the imagination, that of three orders of
being, the first and the third receive any advantage from the
imperfection of the second, or that, indeed, they may not equally exist,
though the second had never been, or should cease to be; and why should
that be concluded necessary, which cannot be proved even to be useful?
The scale of existence, from infinity to nothing, cannot possibly have
being. The highest being not infinite, must be, as has been often
observed, at an infinite distance below infinity. Cheyne, who, with the
desire inherent in mathematicians to reduce every thing to mathematical
images, considers all existence as a cone; allows that the basis is at
an infinite distance from the body; and in this distance between finite
and infinite, there will be room, for ever, for an infinite series of
indefinable existence.
Between the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we suppose
positive existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep; where
there is room again for endless orders of subordinate nature, continued
for ever and for ever, and yet infinitely superiour to nonexistence.
To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, not of our
maker, but of each other, since, on the one side, creation, wherever it
stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the other, infinitely
above nothing, what necessity there is, that it should proceed so far,
either way, that beings so high or so low should ever have existed? We
may ask; but, I believe, no created wisdom can give an adequate answer.
Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite
vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to
be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between
them; and if for one order, then for infinite orders; since every thing
that admits of more or less, and consequently all the parts of that
which admits them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can
judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the
scale, or between any two points of the cone of being, for infinite
exertion of infinite power.
Thus it appears, how little reason those, who repose their reason upon
the scale of being, have to triumph over them who recur to any other
expedient of solution, and what difficulties arise, on every side, to
repress the rebellions of presumptuous decision: "Qui pauca considerat,
facile pronunciat." In our passage through the boundless ocean of
disquisition, we often take fogs for land, and, after having long toiled
to approach them, find, instead of repose and harbours, new storms of
objection, and fluctuations of uncertainty.
We are next entertained with Pope's alleviations of those evils which we
are doomed to suffer.
"Poverty, or the want of riches, is generally compensated by having more
hopes, and fewer fears, by a greater share of health, and a more
exquisite relish of the smallest enjoyments, than those who possess them
are usually blessed with. The want of taste and genius, with all the
pleasures that arise from them, are commonly recompensed by a more
useful kind of common sense, together with a wonderful delight, as well
as success, in the busy pursuits of a scrambling world. The sufferings
of the sick are greatly relieved by many trifling gratifications,
imperceptible to others, and, sometimes, almost repaid by the
inconceivable transports occasioned by the return of health and vigour.
Folly cannot be very grievous, because imperceptible; and I doubt not
but there is some truth in that rant of a mad poet, that there is a
pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know. Ignorance, or the
want of knowledge and literature, the appointed lot of all born to
poverty and the drudgeries of life, is the only opiate capable of
infusing that insensibility, which can enable them to endure the
miseries of the one, and the fatigues of the other. It is a cordial,
administered by the gracious hand of providence, of which they ought
never to be deprived by an ill-judged and improper education. It is the
basis of all subordination, the support of society, and the privilege of
individuals; and I have ever thought it a most remarkable instance of
the divine wisdom, that, whereas in all animals, whose individuals rise
little above the rest of their species, knowledge is instinctive; in
man, whose individuals are so widely different, it is acquired by
education; by which means the prince and the labourer, the philosopher
and the peasant, are, in some measure, fitted for their respective
situations."
Much of these positions is, perhaps, true; and the whole paragraph might
well pass without censure, were not objections necessary to the
establishment of knowledge. Poverty is very gently paraphrased by want
of riches. In that sense, almost every man may, in his own opinion, be
poor. But there is another poverty, which is want of competence of all
that can soften the miseries of life, of all that can diversify
attention, or delight imagination. There is yet another poverty, which
is want of necessaries, a species of poverty which no care of the
publick, no charity of particulars, can preserve many from feeling
openly, and many secretly.
That hope and fear are inseparably, or very frequently, connected with
poverty and riches, my surveys of life have not informed me. The milder
degrees of poverty are, sometimes, supported by hope; but the more
severe often sink down in motionless despondence. Life must be seen,
before it can be known. This author and Pope, perhaps, never saw the
miseries which they imagine thus easy to be borne. The poor, indeed, are
insensible of many little vexations, which sometimes imbitter the
possessions, and pollute the enjoyments, of the rich. They are not
pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutilation of a
compliment; but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceases
to feel the cords that bind him, when the pincers are tearing his flesh.
That want of taste for one enjoyment is supplied by the pleasures of
some other, may be fairly allowed; but the compensations of sickness I
have never found near to equivalence, and the transports of recovery
only prove the intenseness of the pain.
With folly, no man is willing to confess himself very intimately
acquainted, and, therefore, its pains and pleasures are kept secret. But
what the author says of its happiness, seems applicable only to fatuity,
or gross dulness; for that inferiority of understanding, which makes one
man, without any other reason, the slave, or tool, or property of
another, which makes him sometimes useless, and sometimes ridiculous, is
often felt with very quick sensibility. On the happiness of madmen, as
the case is not very frequent, it is not necessary to raise a
disquisition, but I cannot forbear to observe, that I never yet knew
disorders of mind increase felicity: every madman is either arrogant and
irascible, or gloomy and suspicious, or possessed by some passion, or
notion, destructive to his quiet. He has always discontent in his look,
and malignity in his bosom. And, if he had the power of choice, he would
soon repent who should resign his reason to secure his peace.
Concerning the portion of ignorance necessary to make the condition of
the lower classes of mankind safe to the publick, and tolerable to
themselves, both morals and policy exact a nicer inquiry than will be
very soon or very easily made. There is, undoubtedly, a degree of
knowledge which will direct a man to refer all to providence, and to
acquiesce in the condition with which omniscient goodness has determined
to allot him; to consider this world as a phantom, that must soon glide
from before his eyes, and the distresses and vexations that encompass
him, as dust scattered in his path, as a blast that chills him for a
moment, and passes off for ever.
Such wisdom, arising from the comparison of a part with the whole of our
existence, those that want it most cannot possibly obtain from
philosophy; nor, unless the method of education, and the general tenour
of life are changed, will very easily receive it from religion. The bulk
of mankind is not likely to be very wise or very good; and I know not,
whether there are not many states of life, in which all knowledge, less
than the highest wisdom, will produce discontent and danger. I believe
it may be sometimes found, that a _little learning_ is, to a poor man, a
_dangerous thing_. But such is the condition of humanity, that we easily
see, or quickly feel the wrong, but cannot always distinguish the right.
Whatever knowledge is superfluous, in irremediable poverty, is hurtful,
but the difficulty is to determine when poverty is irremediable, and at
what point superfluity begins. Gross ignorance every man has found
equally dangerous with perverted knowledge. Men, left wholly to their
appetites and their instincts, with little sense of moral or religious
obligation, and with very faint distinctions of right and wrong, can
never be safely employed, or confidently trusted; they can be honest
only by obstinacy, and diligent only by compulsion or caprice. Some
instruction, therefore, is necessary, and much, perhaps, may be
dangerous.
Though it should be granted, that those who are _born to poverty and
drudgery_, should not be _deprived_, by an _improper education_, of the
_opiate of ignorance_; even this concession will not be of much use to
direct our practice, unless it be determined, who are those that are
_born to poverty_. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after
generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is, in
itself, cruel, if not unjust, and is wholly contrary to the maxims of a
commercial nation, which always suppose and promote a rotation of
property, and offer every individual a chance of mending his condition
by his diligence. Those, who communicate literature to the son of a poor
man consider him, as one not born to poverty, but to the necessity of
deriving a better fortune from himself. In this attempt, as in others,
many fail and many succeed. Those that fail, will feel their misery more
acutely; but since poverty is now confessed to be such a calamity, as
cannot be borne without the opiate of insensibility, I hope the
happiness of those whom education enables to escape from it, may turn
the balance against that exacerbation which the others suffer.
I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The
privileges of education may, sometimes, be improperly bestowed, but I
shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the
suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the
maxims of policy; and, under the appearance of salutary restraints,
should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which
delights in seeing others depressed.
Pope's doctrine is, at last, exhibited in a comparison, which, like
other proofs of the same kind, is better adapted to delight the fancy
than convince the reason.
"Thus the universe resembles a large and well-regulated family, in which
all the officers and servants, and even the domestic animals, are
subservient to each other, in a proper subordination: each enjoys the
privileges and perquisites peculiar to his place, and, at the same time,
contributes, by that just subordination, to the magnificence and
happiness of the whole."
The magnificence of a house is of use or pleasure always to the master,
and sometimes to the domesticks. But the magnificence of the universe
adds nothing to the supreme being; for any part of its inhabitants, with
which human knowledge is acquainted, an universe much less spacious or
splendid would have been sufficient; and of happiness it does not
appear, that any is communicated from the beings of a lower world to
those of a higher.
The inquiry after the cause of natural evil is continued in the third
letter, in which, as in the former, there is mixture of borrowed truth,
and native folly, of some notions, just and trite, with others uncommon
and ridiculous.
His opinion of the value and importance of happiness is certainly just,
and I shall insert it; not that it will give any information to any
reader, but it may serve to show, how the most common notion may be
swelled in sound, and diffused in bulk, till it shall, perhaps, astonish
the author himself.
"Happiness is the only thing of real value in existence, neither riches,
nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor
virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance, but
as they contribute to its production. All these are, in themselves,
neither good nor evil: happiness alone is their great end, and they are
desirable only as they tend to promote it."
Success produces confidence. After this discovery of the value of
happiness, he proceeds, without any distrust of himself, to tell us what
has been hid from all former inquirers.
"The true solution of this important question, so long and so vainly
searched for by the philosophers of all ages and all countries, I take
to be, at last, no more than this, that these real evils proceed from
the same source as those imaginary ones of imperfection, before treated
of, namely, from that subordination, without which no created system can
subsist; all subordination implying imperfection, all imperfection evil,
and all evil some kind of inconveniency or suffering: so that there
must, be particular inconvenieucies and sufferings annexed to every
particular rank of created beings by the circumstances of things, and
their modes of existence.
"God, indeed, might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in
a world quite differently constituted; but then we had been no longer
men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal
system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniencies."
In all this, there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of
curiosity, or culm the perturbations of doubt. Whether subordination
implies imperfection may be disputed. The means respecting themselves
may be as perfect as the end. The weed, as a weed, is no less perfect
than the oak, as an oak. That _imperfection implies evil, and evil
suffering_, is by no means evident. Imperfection may imply privative
evil, or the absence of some good, but this privation produces no
suffering, but by the help of knowledge. An infant at the breast is yet
an imperfect man, but there is no reason for belief, that he is unhappy
by his immaturity, unless some positive pain be superadded. When this
author presumes to speak of the universe, I would advise him a little to
distrust his own faculties, however large and comprehensive. Many words,
easily understood on common occasions, become uncertain and figurative,
when applied to the works of omnipotence. Subordination, in human
affairs, is well understood; but, when it is attributed to the universal
system, its meaning grows less certain, like the petty distinctions of
locality, which are of good use upon our own globe, but have no meaning
with regard to infinite space, in which nothing is _high_ or _low_.
That, if man, by exaltation to a higher nature, were exempted from the
evils which he now suffers, some other being must suffer them; that, if
man were not man, some other being must be man, is a position arising
from his established notion of the scale of being. A notion to which
Pope has given some importance, by adopting it, and of which I have,
therefore, endeavoured to show the uncertainty and inconsistency. This
scale of being I have demonstrated to be raised by presumptuous
imagination, to rest on nothing at the bottom, to lean on nothing at the
top, and to have vacuities, from step to step, through which any order
of being may sink into nihility without any inconvenience, so far as we
can judge, to the next rank above or below it. We are, therefore, little
enlightened by a writer who tells us, that any being in the state of man
must suffer what man suffers, when the only question that requires to be
resolved is: Why any being is in this state. Of poverty and labour he
gives just and elegant representations, which yet do not remove the
difficulty of the first and fundamental question, though supposing the
present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to content.
"Poverty is what all could not possibly have been exempted from, not
only by reason of the fluctuating nature of human possessions, but
because the world could not subsist without it; for, had all been rich,
none could have submitted to the commands of another, or the necessary
drudgeries of life; thence all governments must have been dissolved,
arts neglected, and lands uncultivated, and so an universal penury have
overwhelmed all, instead of now and then pinching a few. Hence, by the
by, appears the great excellence of charity, by which men are enabled,
by a particular distribution of the blessings and enjoyments of life, on
proper occasions, to prevent that poverty, which, by a general one,
omnipotence itself could never have prevented; so that, by enforcing
this duty, God, as it were, demands our assistance to promote universal
happiness, and to shut out misery at every door, where it strives to
intrude itself.
"Labour, indeed, God might easily have excused us from, since, at his
command, the earth would readily have poured forth all her treasures,
without our inconsiderable assistance; but, if the severest labour
cannot sufficiently subdue the malignity of human nature, what plots and
machinations, what wars, rapine, and devastation, what profligacy and
licentiousness, must have been the consequences of universal idleness!
So that labour ought only to be looked upon, as a task kindly imposed
upon us by our indulgent creator, necessary to preserve our health, our
safety, and our innocence."
I am afraid, that "the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
beginning." If God _could easily have excused us from labour_, I do not
comprehend why _he could not possibly have exempted all from poverty_.
For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more
than necessity of labour; and, in its more severe and deplorable state,
little more than inability for labour. To be poor is to work for others,
or to want the succour of others, without work. And the same exuberant
fertility, which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty
impossible.
Surely, a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should
have spoken more cautiously of omnipotence, nor have presumed to say
what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt, whether
those, who stand highest in the _scale of being_, speak thus confidently
of the dispensations of their maker:
"For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."
Of our inquietudes of mind, his account is still less reasonable:
"Whilst men are injured, they must be inflamed with anger; and, whilst
they see cruelties, they must be melted with pity; whilst they perceive
danger, they must be sensible of fear." This is to give a reason for all
evil, by showing, that one evil produces another. If there is danger,
there ought to be fear; but, if fear is an evil, why should there be
danger? His vindication of pain is of the same kind: pain is useful to
alarm us, that we may shun greater evils, but those greater evils must
be pre-supposed, that the fitness of pain may appear.
Treating on death, he has expressed the known and true doctrine with
sprightliness of fancy, and neatness of diction. I shall, therefore,
insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not
grow stale by repetition
"Death, the last and most dreadful of all evils,
is so far from being one, that it is the infallible
cure for all others.
To die, is landing on some silent shore,
Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar.
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.