Am I
told that this is arrogance? It is nothing of the kind; it is plain
morality, and to say otherwise would be to hide our eyes from murder
because we dread the Murderer. Am I told that I am not competent to judge
the purposes of the Almighty? I answer that if these are _purposes_, I _am_
able to judge of them so far as I can see; and if I am expected to judge of
his purposes when they appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency obliged
also to judge of them when they appear to be malevolent. And it can be no
possible extenuation of the latter to point to the "final result" as "order
and beauty," so long as the means adopted by the "_Omnipotent_ Designer"
are known to have been so revolting. All that we could legitimately assert
in this case would be, that so far as observation can extend, "he cares for
animal perfection" _to the exclusion of_ "animal enjoyment," and even to
the _total disregard_ of animal suffering. But to assert this would merely
be to deny beneficence as an attribute of God.
The dilemma, therefore, which Epicurus has stated with great lucidity, and
which Professor Flint quotes, appears to me so obvious as scarcely to
require statement. The dilemma is, that, looking to the facts of organic
nature, theists must abandon their belief, either in the divine
omnipotence, or in the divine beneficence. And yet, such is the warping
effect of preformed beliefs on the mind, that even so candid a writer as
Professor Flint can thus write of this most obvious truth:--
"The late Mr.
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