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This author's language is often exceedingly involved, and confequently obfcure; and he difplays unpardonable arrogance, when he accufes of mala fides all who deny that man has an original and radical feeling of general benevolence. Such charges are never proper in the difquifitions of philofophers; and they come with a peculiarly bad grace from that philofopher, who seems to hold the ancient and impious doctrine of pantheism.

"There is no reafon," fays he, "why the mind, which is merely reprefentative, fhould be confined to any one thing more than to any other; and a perfect understanding should comprehend them all as they are all contained in nature, or in all.” P. 210.

It may not be very easy to discover what is meant by the mind being merely reprefentative; but in the affertion that "all things are contained in all," more is meant than meets the ear of those who are not acquainted with the writings of ancient as well as modern metaphyficians. E To na is the well known principle of a numerous fect of ancient atheifts, as well as of Spinoza and his followers in more modern times;

Πανία γὰρ ἐν μεγάλῳ Ζηνὸς τάδε σώματι κεῖται.

There is nothing in Hartley's obfervations so abfurd as this impious nonfenfe, nor any thing more fhocking in the writings of Helvetius.

The remarks which are here made on the selfish systems of that author, Hobbes, and Rochefocault, &c., are fuperWe find it indeed ficial, confused, and unfatisfactory. fufficiently proved, that mankind are prompted by difinterefted feelings of pity and compaffion to relieve distress, without any immediate view to felf-intereft; but Hobbes a leaft, with all his errors political and religious, was too fagacious an obferver of what paffes among men, to have called in queftion this fact, as inftances of it were doubtless exhibited every day in the polifhed fociety in which he lived. The question however is, whether thofe feelings are connate with the mind, or generated by the process to which we have alluded in the beginning of this article; and that question is not likely to be. foon answered by the man who writes in the following manner :

"I fee colours, hear founds, feel heat and cold, and believe that two and two make four by a certain mechanism, or from the neceffary structure of the human mind; but it does not follow that all this has any thing to do with felf-love.-One half of the pro

cefs,

cefs, namely, the connecting the fenfe of pain with the idea of it, is evidently contrary to felf-love; nor do I fee any more reafon for aferibing the uneafinefs, or active impulfe which follows, to that principle, fince my own good is neither thought of in it, nor does it follow from it, except indirectly, flowly, and conditionally." P. 253.

No one ever fuppofed, that feeing colours, hearing founds, feeling heat and cold, and believing that two and two make four, are actions proceeding from felf-love; and furely very few have fuppofed that these things are actions proceeding from any motive whatever! The mechanism of the mind is a phrafe to which, although it is used by a few materialifts, we have never been able to affix any diftin&t meaning: there are indeed laws of human belief, but they are not mechanical laws. The necessary ftructure of the human mind is another phrafe, expreffive either of nothing, or of what is obviously not true; for God, if he had feen proper, might certainly have animated the body with the mind of a brute, or with the mind of an angel.

When the author talks of one half of the process, by which the paffion of pity is generated, being contrary to Self-love, he fhows that he has never read with attention the detail of that procefs, as it is given by those who believe, that the origin of our most benevolent affections may be traced to felf-love. Does he imagine, that in the intercourfe of fociety, either children or men, may form in their own minds what affociations they please, independent of circumstances over which they have no controul? Affociation, like every other phenomenon in nature, is regulated by laws, adapted indeed to circumftances, but by no means under the government of individual caprice; and we fhould as foon expect to see a stone, impelled by no force, begin to move, as to find a youth, who from his earlieft infancy had converfed only with perfons of the most amiable and beneficent difpofitions, remarkable for cruelty and hard-heartedness; or another, who had been trained by fcoundrels and favages, eminent for generofity and mildness. It is a well-known factknown long before the days of Hartley, Helvetius, or Locke, that in perfons habituated to fcenes of diftrefs, the painful part of the feeling of pity is gradually diminished in its intenseness: whilft the promptitude to adminifter actual relief is in an equal degree increased. How is this fact to be accounted for on our author's principles? And why did not he at tempt to account for it? He feems to imagine, that it detracts from the dignity of human nature to fuppofe, that our benevolent affections fpring from a felfifa fource; but how

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abfurd

abfurd is fuch an imagination? Our nature, whatever it be, is not of our own forming; for we have nothing which we did not receive; and fuppofing our benevolent affections to fpring from felf-love, inftead of becoming ungrateful to the Author of our being, we fhould rather, as a judicious writer has well obferved, "contemplate with peculiar pleafure that masterly arrangement of mind, which thus confers a power upon felfishnets itself, of converting the pleature and welfare of others into a fource of the greatest delight to ourselves." This is indeed one of the innumerable inftances in which our prefent as well as future happiness is combined with our duty,

ART. X. A View of the Evidences of Chriftianity, N
(Continued from our laft, p. 395.)

THE fubject of the third of thefe difcourfes is the Mofaic Hiftory of the Fall of Man, or of the introduction of evi into the world; in oppofition to all the attempts which have been made to confider it as mythological, allegorical, or in any refpect inferior to human theories on the fame fubject. The Manichean fcheme, of two independent principles of good and evil, and the Platonic doctrine of the neceflary inperfection of matter, both invented to folve the great difhculty concerning the origin of evil, are briefly oppofed in the fermon; but in the notes, where there is more space, they are fully attacked by argument. The great fault of both fyftems is, that they make no provifion for the extinction of evil at any future period. If there exifts an evil deity, as well as a good one, we have no fecurity that the latter will ever prevail over the other; or rather we have a certainty that he never will, both being, by the hypothefis, independent and eternal; and if matter is of neceflity malignant, we cannot fay under what circumitances we fhall be wholly delivered from its effects. The doctrine of a scale of beings, which Pope and others have adopted,, for the folution of the

Dr. Sayers: fee his Difquifitions metaphyfical and literary, printed for Johnfon, 1793

fame

fame difficulty, is liable alfo, the author obferves, to the fame objection. We fhall infert a few of his arguments against Gibbon, who appears to have leaned to the Manichean fyf-" tem; and against Bayle who defended it with all the powers of his fine underftanding.

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" Mr. Gibbon reckons the following doctrines, which the Gnoftics borrowed from Zoroafter, fublime ones; viz. the eter nity of matter, the existence of two principles, and the myfterious hierarchy of the invifible world. Decline and Fall, ch. xv. He calls Auguftin's converfion, alfo, from Manicheifm, at progrefs from Reafon to Faith." This may have been fo, perhaps, as far as Reafon is to be confidered as inadequate to acquaint us with the real origin of evil: but if Mr. Gibbon meant to infinuate, that it was a progrefs from principles confonant to Reason, to thofe that were not fo, this we pofitively deny.

"Bayle affuredly meant to infinuate no lefs, in his notes to the articles Manichéens, Marcionites, Pauliciens, Origene, Zoroaftre, in his critical Dictionary, where he pretends, that to argue against facts is abfurd; and therefore, though it should be ever fo contrary to Reafon, that moral evil fhould have entrance into a world formed by a Being infinitely good and holy, yet we must fubmit to believe fo, on the authority of the Old Teftament, which the Manicheans, as he obferves, were confiften: enough to reject. The axiom, "ab actu ad potentiam valet confequentia," is as clear, fays he, as the propofition that two and two make four. We grant this, but are far from yielding to the confequences he would draw. Evil is in the world, we are certain :. that God is good and pure, we are alfo certain: therefore the poffibility of evil obtaining to a certain degree under the providence of a good God, is evident to us from the fact; but it by no means appears to us to follow from thence, that it would be moft reasonable to refer the origin of evil to an independent prineiple of evil, because this must for ever preclude us from all expectation of its removal. And as all the arguments which M. Bayle puts into the mouths of the Manicheans (and it must be admitted that he does the utmost juftice to their caufe) tend to the eftablishment of God's moral attributes of goodnefs and purity, it may furely admit of a queftion, whether, to argue philofophically only, that fyftem which provides for the removal of evil in time to come, is not much more conducive to the glory of the Deity, than that, which, to account for prefent appearances, excludes all hopes of the melioration of things? Or which, by way of rendering the prefent fyftem poffible in the eye of Reafon, would make it impoffible for the providence of God to induce a change?

This is the great point to be confidered, upon a view of the existing facts; the poffibility of a change. The fact of the exiftence of evil, both moral and phyfical, is fully admitted-by all;

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but every philofophical fyftem, which refers it to a caufe independent of God, neceffarily involves the improbability, or rather impoffibility, of any change for the better; and muft derogate more from the attributes of God, than any conclufions to be drawn from the prefent permission of evil, with a profpect of its removal in whole or in part. M. Bayle pretends to exclude all à priori reafonings upon the fubject; but it is furprising how continually he departs from this fyftem. Every argument on the Manichean fide may reasonably be confidered as an argument à priori, and chiefly founded on a petitio principii of the poffible existence of two principles; whereas, in adopting the plan of reafoning à pof. teriori, from the existence of facts, we are guilty of no petitio principii, in fuppofing the existence of a good principle; for that is what the Manicheans admit as well as we. His reasonings against the Origenists [art. Origene, note E. edit. 1738. Bafe] confift entirely of à priori arguments, regardless of facts. For he would infift upon it, that a good God cannot permit evils in any degree, or upon any conditions; though this is incapable of proof à priori, and à pofteriori the evidence of facts is against him. He fays indeed, that the ftrongest arguments of the Manicheans are founded on the hypothefis of a few being faved, and the reft eternally damned: but the existence of two independent principles implies the neceffary existence of evils, both natural and moral, to eternity, by the acknowledgement of M. Bayle himself, (fee his Eclairciffement at the end of his Dictionary, p. 630.) and this in direct oppofition to a perfectly good and pure principle." P. 131.

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In the remainder of this difcourfe, the author fhows that the fcriptural hiftory of the Fall is not liable to fuch objections; nor, indeed, to any of those which are usually made against it; particularly that it cannot poffibly be referred either to allegory or mythology.

In the fourth difcourfe, the author notices and oppofes the opinion, which has been much vaunted by fome late writers, that the volume of nature is the only authentic revelation of God, and that it is univerfally legible. This opinion, he very justly obferves, though it led only to theifm in Rouffeau, terminated with Diderot* in abfolute atheifm. It was, as is better known here, adopted alfo by Paine; of whom whether his fpeculations terminated in

* Author of the infamous "Syfteme de la Nature," published under the feigned name of Mirabaud. That author has the dreadful prefumption to argue against the being and power of God, from his being permitted to write and publish that book.

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