Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
General
Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 2
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English essays
If revelation speaks on the subject of the origin of evil it speaks
only to discourage dogmatism and temerity. In the most ancient, the most
beautiful, and the most profound of all works on the subject, the Book
of Job, both the sufferer who complains of the divine government, and
the injudicious advisers who attempt to defend it on wrong principles,
are silenced by the voice of supreme wisdom, and reminded that the
question is beyond the reach of the human intellect. St Paul silences
the supposed objector, who strives to force him into controversy, in
the same manner. The church has been, ever since the apostolic times,
agitated by this question, and by a question which is inseparable from
it, the question of fate and free-will. The greatest theologians and
philosophers have acknowledged that these things were too high for them,
and have contended themselves with hinting at what seemed to be the most
probable solution. What says Johnson? "All our effort ends in belief
that for the evils of life there is some good reason, and in confession
that the reason cannot be found." What says Paley? "Of the origin of
evil no universal solution has been discovered. I mean no solution which
reaches to all cases of complaint.--The consideration of general laws,
although it may concern the question of the origin of evil very nearly,
which I think it does, rests in views disproportionate to our faculties,
and in a knowledge which we do not possess. It serves rather to account
for the obscurity of the subject, than to supply us with distinct
answers to our difficulties." What says presumptuous ignorance? "No
doubt whatever exists as to the origin of evil." It is remarkable that
Mr Sadler does not tell us what his solution is. The world, we suspect,
will lose little by his silence.
He falls on the reviewer again.
"Though I have shown," says he, "and on authorities from which none can
lightly differ, not only the cruelty and immorality which this system
necessarily involves, but its most revolting feature, its gross
partiality, he has wholly suppressed this, the most important part of my
argument; as even the bare notice of it would have instantly exposed
the sophistry to which he has had recourse. If, however, he would fairly
meet the whole question, let him show me that 'hydrophobia,' which he
gives as an example of the laws of God and nature, is a calamity to
which the poor alone are liable; or that 'malaria,' which, with singular
infelicity, he has chosen as an illustration of the fancied evils of
population, is a respecter of persons."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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