step of moral advance may have to be gained by the free exertion of each individual, people, and generation in succession; but, as a matter of fact, our race does on the whole advance, and not recede, in the path towards good. Just as reason, although it may be feebler than the passions in a short struggle, can always conquer them if it get time to collect its energies-so virtue gains and vice loses advantages with the lapse of years; for, while the prejudices which opposed the former subside and its excellences become ever increasingly apparent, as history flows onward, those who leagued themselves in support of the latter quarrel among themselves, its fascinations decay, and its. deformities become more manifest and repulsive. Age is linked to age, and in the struggle of good and evil which pervades all the ages, victory is seen slowly but steadily declaring itself for the good. The vices die the virtues never die. Some great evils which once afflicted our race have passed away. What great good has ever been lost? Justice carries it over injustice in the end. Now, whatever be the means by which moral progress is brought about, the testimony which it involves as to the moral character of God is none the less certain. The successful application of Darwinian principles, for example, to the explanation of human progress, would be no disproof of design in social evolution. If a natural selec

tion, based on force, were shown to have prepared the way for a natural selection based on craft, which in its turn gave place to justice, and that again to love, God must none the less be credited with having contemplated the final result, and that result must none the less be held to be an indication of His character. When what is called the struggle for existence has been proved to lead, not to the deterioration but to the improvement of life-to the greatest abundance of the highest kinds of life possible in the circumstances-it will have been vindicated and shown to have been a means to secure such ends as a wise and benevolent Being would entertain. When it has been proved to have constrained men gradually to recognise that the virtues are the conditions of the most desirable existence, and that the vices are so many obstacles to the attainment of such an existence, it will have been still further vindicated by having been thus shown to be the mode in which righteousness is realised in the world. It matters little, so far as the religious inference is concerned, after what natural process and by what natural laws moral progress has been brought about; for whatever the process and laws may be discovered to be, they will be those which God has chosen, and will be fitted to show forth the glory of His wisdom, love, and justice.1

1 See Appendix XXX.

LECTURE VIII.

CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS TO THE DIVINE WISDOM, BENEVOLENCE, AND JUSTICE.

I.

CONSCIENCE testifies that there is a God who is good and just; and society and history, on the whole, confirm its testimony. But there are a multitude of moral evils in the world, and these may seem to warrant an opposite inference, or at least so to counterbalance what has been adduced as evidence for the goodness and justice of God as to leave us logically unable to draw any inference regarding His moral character. We must consider, therefore, whether these evils really warrant an anti-theistic conclusion; and as they are analogous to, and closely connected with, those facts which have been argued to be defects in the physical constitution of the universe inconsistent with wisdom, or at least with perfect wisdom, in the Creator, it seems desirable to ask ourselves distinctly this

general question, Are there such defects in the constitution and course of nature that it is impossible for us to believe that it is the work of a wise and holy God?

Epicurus and Lucretius imagined that the world was formed by a happy combination of atoms, acting of themselves blindly, and necessarily after innumerable futile conjunctions had taken place. Lange, the most recent historian of materialism, has revived the hypothesis, and represented the world as an instance of success which had been preceded by milliards of entire or partial failures. This is the theory of natural selection applied to account for the origin of worlds; and no one, I believe, who combines the hypotheses of natural selection and atheism can consistently entertain any other conception of the origin of worlds. But where are the milliards of mishaps which are said. to have occurred? Where are the monstrous worlds which preceded those which constitute the cosmos? We must, of course, have good evidence for their existence before we can be entitled to hold Nature responsible for them; we must not charge upon her the mere dreams of her accusers. Not a trace, however, of such worlds as, according to the hypothesis, were profusely scattered through space, has been pointed out. It would be a waste of time for us to argue with men who invent worlds in order to find fault with them. We turn,

therefore, to those who censure not imaginary worlds but the actual world.

Comte, following Laplace, has argued that there is no evidence of intelligence or design in the solar system, because its elements and members are not disposed in the most advantageous manner. The moon, in particular, we are assured, should have been so placed that it would revolve round the earth in the same time that the earth revolved round the sun. In that case she would appear every night, and always at the full. Storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, and deserts have been often argued to be defects which mar both the beauty and utility of creation. Changes in the polar regions, in the physical character of Africa, in the position of the Asiatic continent, and in the Pacific Ocean, have been suggested as improvements on the constitution of the world. The actual climates of various countries have been maintained to be not the most favourable to life which are possible under the existing laws of nature.1

A little reflection will enable us to assign its just value to such criticism of creation. Remark, then, in the first place, that there may be abundant evidence of intelligence where there is not evidence of perfect intelligence. Although very considerable defects were clearly shown to exist in the constitution and arrangements of the physical 1 See Appendix XXXI.