That what he has done _may_
be wise and right, could we see his whole scheme of things, no careful
thinker will deny; but to suppose it can be _shown_ that he has done this,
is an instance of purblind fanaticism which is most startling in a work on
_Theism_. "The best world, _we may be assured_, that our fancies can feign,
would in reality be far inferior to the world God has made, whatever
imperfections we may think we see in it." Are we leading a sermon on the
datum "God is love"? No; but a work on the questions, Is there a God? and,
if so, Is he a God of love? And yet the work is written by a man who
evidently tries to argue fairly. What shall we say of the despotism of
preformed beliefs? May we not say at least this much--that those who
endeavour to reconcile their theories of divine goodness with the facts of
human evil might well appropriate to themselves the words above quoted, "We
have neither the facts nor the faculties to answer such questions"? For the
"facts" indeed are absent, and the "faculties" of impartial thought must be
absent also, if this obvious truth cannot be seen--that "these questions"
only derive their "speculatively unanswerable" character from the rational
falsity of the manner by which it is sought to answer them. The "facts" of
our moral nature, so far as honest reason can perceive, belie the
hypothesis of Theism; and although the "faculties" of man may be forced by
prejudice into an acceptance of contradictory propositions, the truth is
obvious that only by the hypothesis of Evolution can that old-tied knot be
cut--the Origin of Evil.
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