However insensible individuals themselves may be of the fact, some men,
and those of quite different character, find it unpleasant to submit
themselves to the great Author of animal life. For they, in substance,
make a continual inquiry, How is it to be reconciled that a Being so
perfectly good should have admitted into the midst of his works, as a
constant attendant of all his sentient creations, so large an admixture
of what we call evil?
We might continue the inquiry by adding, Why, in a mere drop of water,
do we find the animalculæ manifesting all the agonies and repeating the
outrages upon one another strikingly visible among the larger animal
developments of the great ocean and of the land? Why such an admixture
of pain and misery among men? Why the male of all animals making
destructive war on their kind? Why exterminating wars among men? And why
the numberless, nameless evils everywhere spread through the world?
And do we forget that the great Creator of animal life brought forth his
works and sustains each thing by the unchangeable exercise of his laws?
Laws which are found to have a direct tendency to progressive
improvement? Will rational beings expect God to change their actions to
suit their disregard of them? Will fire cease to burn because we may
choose to thrust in the hand? And what if, even in all this, we shall
discover his wisdom and goodness by making what we may call punishment
for the breach of the law, a pulling back from deeper misery, a powerful
stimulus for a change of direction from a downward to an upward movement
in the path of progressive improvement? Do we find no satisfaction in
this view of the constitution of nature, of the wisdom of God?
These men seem desirous that the works of God should have been on a
different footing, or that every thing should have been at once perfect
to the extent of his power. Would they then desire to be his equal too?
But, at least as to man, the mind incapable of error, the body of
suffering! It is possible that under such a dispensation, our mental
enjoyments would have been on a par with a mathematical axiom, and our
bodies have about as much sympathy for the things around them as has a
lump of gold. And how do they know that the rocks, minerals, and trees,
yea, the starry inhabitants of the firmament, are not the exact
manifestations of what would have been creations of that order? We will
not stop here to inquire how far the complaints of these men operate to
their own mental and physical injury.
It is a great popular error to suppose all of our own species to be born
equals. It involves the proposition that each one also possesses the
same faculties and powers, and to the same extent. Even every
well-informed nursery-maid is furnished with a good refutation. The
grades of physical development are proofs of grades of mind.
Through the whole animal world, as with man, mental action takes place,
providing for the sustenance and security of life; and the amount of
mental power each one possesses is ever in proportion to the development
of the nervous system and animal structure. Upon this earth, the highest
grade of such development is found among the Caucasian species of man.
Physiologists assert that the African exhibits, in maturity, the
imperfect brain &c. of a Caucasian fœtus some considerable time before
its birth: so the Malay and Indian, the same at a period nearer birth;
while the Mongolian, that of the infant lately born. See _Lloyd’s
Popular Physiology_. The _beard_, among men the attribute of a full
maturity, largest in the Caucasian, is scarcely found among the lower
grades of the African.
Colour is also found darkest where the development is the least perfect,
and the most distant from the Caucasian; and hence a philosopher of
great learning makes the question pertinent, “May not colour then depend
on development also? Development being arrested at so immature a stage
in the case of the negro, the skin may take on the colour as an
unavoidable consequence of its imperfect organization.” The different
species and all the varieties of man are nothing but a short history of
their different grades of organization and development. One fraction, by
a long and more or less strict observance of the laws of nature,
becomes, after many generations, quite improved in its organization.
From an opposite course, another fraction has degenerated and sunk into
degradation. It is now a well-known fact that Caucasian parents too
nearly related exhibit offspring of the Mongolian type. So, a particular
tribe of Arabs, now on the banks of the Jordan, from an _in-and-in_
propagation have become scarcely to be distinguished from Negroes. This
is only an instance, but is important when we notice the deteriorating
influence such intercourse has among domestic animals. In short, every
breach of the laws tending to the path of progressive improvement must
have a deteriorating effect on the offspring. There was truth in the
ancient adage, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s
teeth are set on edge.”
Every private habit and circumstance in life that enervates or deranges
the physical system, or disturbs the balance of the mind, stamps its
impress on the descendant. The moral and physical condition of the
progeny, with slight exceptions the result of an elevating and upward
movement, or a downward and deteriorating one, (as the case may be,) is
the necessary result of the moral and physical condition of the
parentage: and this influence is doubtless felt back for many
generations.
But does God make man wicked? does he predestine to evil? These queries
may seem pertinent to some, because we are in the habit of considering
each individual by itself; whereas each individual is only a link in the
chain of phenomena, which owe their existence to laws productive of
good, and even of progressive improvement, but of necessity, in their
breach, admit these evils, because such breach is sin. Our moral
faculties are permitted to range in a wide field; but evil is the result
of a disruption of the rules of action. It is the flaming sword elevated
to guard our good, showing us the awful truth, the mere bad habit in the
parent may become a constitutional inherent quality in the off spring.
We do not suppose these influences always very perceptibly immediate.
Many generations are doubtless often required in the full development of
an upward movement to a higher order of moral perception; and so in the
opposite. Yet we cannot forbear to notice how often the immediate
descendant is quite apt to prove its parentage.
Will the theologian object—“You contradict the Scripture. You make five
species of man. Whereas they are all the descendants of Noah.” Have we
not shown ample ground and time for their formation from his stock?
Besides, we expect hereafter to prove by Scripture that Ham took a wife
from the degenerate race of Cain; which, if so, would alone place his
descendants in the attitude of inferiority and subjection.
No! but we advertise the theologian that we shall take the Scripture for
our platform. We believe it, and hope to even hold him close to it.
But we now ask for the reflection of all, does not the degenerate man,
degraded in constitution below the possibility of his emerging from the
depth to which he has sunk, by any self-renovating power, still
lingering about his reduced condition, require the aid of one of
superior nature, of superior organization and mental development, to act
as his adviser, protector, and master? Would not such a provision be a
merciful one?
And may we not also inquire, whether the superior endowments here
required do not also require to be exercised in bearing rule over the
wayward energies of those more degenerate, as a necessary element in the
school to a higher advance? And shall we not perceive that such a
relation must produce a vast amount of improvement and happiness to
both?
Children and inferior persons often show themselves, upon the slightest
temptation, false and cruel,—often the inheritance of parental
imperfection. Absolute command, sustained by physical force, has alone
been found sufficient to eradicate these old, and to found new habits of
truthfulness and humanity.
True, the Scripture asserts that all men are equal in the sight of God,
just as a father feels an equal parental regard for all his children.
The philosophic mind cannot well conceive otherwise than that God feels
an equal regard for all parts of his creation; for “The glory of the
Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his work.” But
this view reaches not the physical fact; for the father hesitates not to
place a guardian over his wayward child, or disinherit the utterly
worthless. So God “turneth man to destruction; and sayeth, Return, ye
children of men.” And how gladly would the parent provide the fatted
calf for the worthless son upon his return to honour and virtue! So
there is more joy in heaven over the return of one sinner than over
ninety-nine who have not gone astray.
The mercy of God shines upon the world in floods of celestial light; for
Christianity, in its passports to heaven, judges all men by their own
acts. Therefore, the most degraded nature, upon a sight of its
deformity, may feel an unchangeable regret, and inherit its portion.
Here Christianity itself points the way to progressive improvement, and
commands children to obey their parents, wives their husbands, and
servants their masters.
The grace of God is as openly manifested in the welfare of the child or
slave, when produced through the interposition of the parent or master,
as if the interposition had been more immediate.
------------------