1
10
2
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/66bf10875e4f0159211dc19291783594.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=vdX5udFG-crtFcsxdthJpVJzuIMBLB2%7EDpojlopW4AIrOFEKz7mYNhsveBeBiaheuW8tqLSA-LftGlAI37-DMJ1oK-0kPdHsnzBSGDWDyRy5TmUGizMShaGGYZxJ8Iqj8jL2WhKxzPzGfee8bBBdnp4bPzmcKfAGBq-0Q7X0PtDl6XwHAxm7UnuImf4xFLX%7EFl7901OwDZ6H1AQcRrcsqAfBEChhs%7EfNjdoAQIijthI6AAxhSfZQ006XgMmTyPYLnREQarS2Mrg5mKFOKBFVjk5lxULt4BrZUSy01j2AOQ8NIwTU6cpZHtqE3Q%7E2YuXd1OO9rHK0LMDVSJ5kH9l4Rg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
c99cf20663e8c08db6b06e773f698eea
PDF Text
Text
Vicarious Suffering.
OUR
SANCTIONS
FOR
CRUELTY.
BY
SALADIN.
(Reprinted from the “Agnostic Journal.")
May 31st, 1902.
LONDON:
W. STEWART & CO., 4b FARRINGDON ST,
E.C.
�Every Thursday.
Price Twopence.
Journal
AND ECLECTIC REVIEW.
EDITED
BY
SALADIN.
V Under name and pen-name, some of the most
scholarly and able writers of the age contribute regularly
to The Agnostic Journal ; and, although the Editorial
policy is opposed to the popular and dominant faith,
the columns of the journal are ever open to articles in
defence of Christianity from clergymen or lay Christians
of recognized ability, while considerable space is devoted
to the investigation of Theosophy, Spiritualism,
Mysticism, etc.
The Agnostic Journal can be had free by post on
the following terms :—Quarterly, 2s. 8|d.; half-yearly,
5s. 5d. ; yearly, 10s. iod. Orders should be given to
local newsagents ; but where this is impracticable they
should be sent direct to the Publishing Office.
London : W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farringdon Street, E.C.
�VICARIOUS SUFFERING.
“ Man’s inhumanity to man ” is the blight and canker
and bane of human life. In recent decades human
ingenuity has been, in part, directed to such benignant
inventions as the steam-engine and the electric telegraph
and telephone. But, anterior to those decades, for
century upon century, man’s mechanical ingenuity was
principally directed to the production of instruments of
torture, to contrivances which applied to those mystic
harp-strings, the human nerves, could evoke every note in
the gamut of agony.
In the Ages of Faith, in the ages in which the Church
which claimed, and still claims, to be of Christ was
supreme, we had no telescope, no gas-light, no railway, no
printing-press ; but we had the rack, the wheel, the boots,
the thumb-screw, the witch’s bridle, the Iron Virgin, and
other torture-engines too numerous and devilish to be
catalogued here. In our museums you can still behold
preserved specimens of these mechanical horrors. The
sight of them makes me shudder : then, what effect must
their hellish spectacle of rust and horror have upon you,
O Orthodoxist, when you remember that it was almost
exclusively in the service of the Church that that rack tore
human joints out of their sockets, that the boots there
�4
VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
held the leg of a human being till blood from the ruptured
veins and marrow from the shattered bone splashed in
the face of him who, with swinging hammer, drove home
the merciless wedges ? Here is heresy, some incom
prehensibly subtle doctrinal distinction contemned : then,
tighten the wedges, apply the hammer ; as weighed against
the crime of heresy how trifling are blood and marrow
and anguish and agony !
Were grimly fanatical believers culpably inconsistent
with their creed in thus mangling their fellow human
beings ? Did not the Lord, at the very outset of his
career with man, shew that he preferred the red blood of
the veins to the red flush of the rose ? Did he not prefer
the fat of Abel’s veal to the fragrance of Cain’s violets ?
Cain : Poor Abel ! he was but a shepherd boy,
Who offered up the firstlings of his flocks
In order to appease Jehovah’s wrath,
Who revelled in the pangs and dying groans
Of the poor beasts who never did him wrong.
My heart revolted at the cruel sport. ’Twas I
Refused to torture gentle innocents,
But, taking fruit, I offered it to Him,
Altho’ ’twas mock’ry, seeing all was His.
Spirit : Fruit would not do. The Lord has ordered blood.
Cain : My brother, as a shepherd, offered lambs,
And I, as husbandman, did offer fruit.
Methought the offering of one’s toil is best acceptable.
Spirit : Blood, dying pangs, the torture of the innocent,
Alone appeases the Almighty’s wrath.
Cain : Ay ! to the shame of all created things,
Thou speakest true—He loveth blood I *
Did not the entire wheel of the Christians’ faith turn upon
the pivot of blood and suffering ? Was not the man-god
in whom they believed nailed, hand and foot, to the bitter
cross ? Painters, poets, theologians and historians, have
testified to the pain and ignomy of crucifixion. It was not
* Lady Florence Dixie, in “ Abel Avenged,” in Part II. of
“ The Songs of a Child.”
�VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
5
mere execution, as we now understand the word; it was
studied torture. In being nailed, or lashed, to the cross, no
vital organ of the victim was affected. Crucifixion was, with
hellish ingenuity, designed to elicit and stimulate all the
suffering of which the nerves of the culprit were capable,
even to the last spasm and writhe of anguish and agony.
A strong culprit has been known to hang on the cross
for several days, before exposure to the sun, hunger, slow
haemorrhage and fiery thirst brought death in merciful
relief.
And this is the revolting and horrible torture to which
the Church deliberately and dogmatically subjected her
man-deity. Lest the horror upon which her very existence
rested should be overlooked or forgotten, crucifixes with
a tortured and nude human figure nailed thereto were
exhibited everywhere, in wood, in stone, on canvas.
And, as if this were not enough of the cruel and the
horrible, the twelve “ Stations of the Cross,” each more
shudderingly revolting than the other, were invented and
forced, in all their repellant gruesomness, upon the wild
and sanguinary imagination of an unlettered public.
Blood! Blood ! Blood everywhere ! “ Without the
shedding of blood there is no remission.” “ Except
ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in
you.”
This horrible dithyramb with the refrain of “ Blood ”
only too truculently commended itself to the fierce races
in the fields of Christian mission. Blood, not brain.
Brain was crude, credulous and inchoate, and applied its
raw rapacity to blood and the merciless shedding
thereof. Zealots, bigots, their god had been tortured, and
.they, not incoherently, took to inventing instruments “ for
His name’s sake.” Habituation to the idea of crucifixion—
“ and, being in agony, He prayed more earnestly, and
the sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling
�6
VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
down to the ground”—hardened all the more gentle
and tender humanitarian instincts, as daily contemplation
of cruel and morbid topics inevitably will. And, here, in
London, only a few years ago, we had, on exhibition, a
collection of torture-engines by which, through dark and
bloody ages, on the scaffold and in the dungeon, the Gospel
had been protected in its purity against the taint of
heresy.
Perdition to the church that required such engines to pro
tect her against heresy ! Now, on every side, she is assailed
by heresy—nay, by blank unbelief; and this contumacious
journal is, every week, hurled in her teeth in defiant
scorn. Yet who will say that, in spite of this, the world
is not better than it was at the time when this serial would
have been in the flames and its editor on the rack ?
Blood! Blood ! “ There is a fountain filled with
blood.” Well, disinfect the abhorrent nuisance and fill
it up with rubble: scatter over it a layer of rich and
generous mould ; there let the wholesome green grass wave
round the rathe roses of Reason and the white lilies of
Peace. Can it be wondered at that this habituation to the
conception of the sanguinary and horrible has rendered
Christianity the bloodiest agency that has ever cursed the
earth with its presence ? I fearlessly appeal to history in
corroboration of my averment. “ I come not to bring
peace, but a sword,” is a dictum put into the mouth of
the clumsily-invented myth from whom the faith of the
vulgar takes its name. Yes, and, by Heaven, the sword
came, and came to stay; and with it came ignorance and
superstition and bigotry, and cruelty and rancour and hate.
“ The Lamb of the Great Sacrifice” was hoisted on the back
of The Ass of the Great Credulity, and the Dark Ages was
the result, and the darkness of the Dark Ages flings its
penumbra upon the vaunted illumination of to-day to a
degree that he who looks upon Society conventionally
little suspects.
�VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
7
Not only did the “glad tidings of great joy”—O
mordant irony !—tend to the reckless and merciless waste
of life; but, by a far hotter and more real hell than any
previous faith had known, it lent new terrors to death.
Never, before Christianity was devised, was it dis
covered that there was any sting in death worth speaking
of. Ask the death-bed memories of certain sincere
Christians of the type of John Bunyan and William
Cowper, in their raving terror, how Christianity takes
away the sting from death; and, if I, like them, were a
Christian, I feel certain that my death-bed would be as
shudderingly terrible as was theirs. There are, I know,
many Christians who feel quite sure that they will “ fall
asleep in Jesus,” and who console themselves by repeating
maudlin, nauseous, and meaningless Gospel tags. They
know that the vast majority of human kind go to perdition,
but they have the despicable self-conceit to believe
that they have been selected from that overwhelming
majority, that they are members of that select few, that
mere handful, the elect, that they have “ found Jesus,’’
that they have been “ washed in the blood of the Lamb,”
and much else of canting commonplace. And, in their
selfish meanness, they feel idiotically happy—although,
practically, the whole of the rest of the world is to be lost.
And only by this intensely selfish and self-conceited
imbecility does Christianity 11 take away the sting from
death.” Plato knew how to die, ignorant of this
sting-extracting process; and so did Socrates, so did
Cato, so did Epaminondas, so did Codes, so did Caesar,
so did Julian.
He who mercilessly drowned a multitude of swine,
after, in his superstitious ignorance, he deemed he had
put devils into them, cannot be cited as a zoophilist.
Buddha and Mahomet alike insisted upon kindness to the
“lower” animals; but where did Jesus utter one word
that can be quoted enjoining upon us kindly treatment
�VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
of our poor non-human fellow-mortals ? We find attri
buted to him a number of fatuous utterances like,
“ I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven ”; “I and
my father are one ” ; and “ The father is greater than I.”
But he never once said : “ Be merciful to the ass ”; “ Be
kind to the dog ”; or “ Liberate the slave.” And,
consistently enough, till this hour, the countries professing
the faith that bears his name are by far the cruellest and
zoomistic in the world.
Even while I write, in Spain, the most Christian
country in Europe, a bull-fight on a more than ordinarily
*
colossal scale is being arranged, and which will involve
reeking slaughters and horrors in which the Mahometan
could never participate, and which the Buddhist would
rather die than sanction. By far the best organized and
numerically strongest section of the Church that bears
Christ’s name formulates thus, in brutal candour, in
“ The Catholic Dictionary,” published under the
imprimatur of Cardinal Vaughan: “ The brutes are
made for man, who has the same right over them that he
has over plants and stones. He may, according to the
express permission of God, given to Noe, kill them for his
food, and this without strict necessity; it must also be
lawful to put them to death or to inflict pain on them for
any good or reasonable end, such as the promotion
of man’s knowledge, health, etc., or even for the purposes
of recreation.”
There are, however, humanitarians among the Papists,
as among the Protestants, men and women nobler than,
and unconsciously in revolt against, their creed. For
instance, the Christian pietist, Frances Power Cobbe,
denounces Vivisection as “ to the last degree un-Christian ”;
and then, by a tour de force of the glaring inconsistency
to which Christian apologists are driven, she admits:
* See p. 13.
�VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
9
“ This abominable sentiment, and all the cruelty to man
and brute of which it has been the promoter, remains
after twenty centuries of Christianity almost unnoticed
by the churches of Christ. No moralist—so far as my
small knowledge extends, whether Catholic or Protestant
—no father, no schoolman, no casuist of later times, no
Protestant preachers, have denounced Cruelty and the
Pleasure in Pain with anything approaching to the nature
of its moral delinquency.”
Again : “ If we really accepted the precept of Love to
all and under all conditions as the supreme Divine Law,
should we not regard the sin of positively torturing and
taking pleasure in the sight of torture as the very last and
worst of offences ? Should not the early Christian
teachers, when they mapped out the Seven Deadly Sins,
have placed Cruelty the very first on the list ? What
were they doing, and what has the Church of Rome been
doing ever since, to tell us that Sloth, Covetousness, Lust,
Anger, Envy, Pride, and even Gluttony are mortal sins,
and say not one word about Cruelty to man or beast ?
Again : 11 Even our own English minds (through whole
regions of which the old Roman theology and morals still
unconsciously dribble) rarely take in the idea that the
supreme Vice is Cruelty, that while all other vices degrade
man to the level of the beast, Cruelty sinks him to that
of the fiend. When we speak of Vice commonly, we
think of sexual vice or intemperance. We do not think
of that Vice of which—so it seems to me—we must, if
guilty, repent through all the cycles of our immortality.”*
Yes, Miss Cobbe, and to this Vice of all the vices that
“ most holy religion ” of yours is not appreciably opposed,
in either theory or practice !
That truculent Romish dictum I have quoted gives
full warranty, not only to hunting our fellow-mortals to
Contemporary Review, May, 1902.
�IO
VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
death for “ sport,” but gives sanction to the hideous
horrors exposed in a brochure * which I have glanced
at and closed with a shudder. Jesus was crucified to
secure our spiritual, and now, consistently enough with
that immoral and revolting proposition, dogs and cats and
rabbits and guinea-pigs are being vivisected to secure our
physical well-being. In the name of Mercy, who and
what are we that both god and dog should suffer and die
for us ? I who, till recently, was endowed with far above
the normal strength and agility, and could leap a five-bar
gate, was wont to feel more proud of the feat than that
of writing an “ At Random ” ; but I have now, through a
nerve-malady, to move cautiously, and not over steadily,
along by the aid of a staff. Yet, even were the torture
of the mouse, exhibited in figure 447, to disclose the
neurotic secret that would again make me a swift-footed
Achilles, I should, unscathed, set the “ wee bit creepin’,
timorous beastie ” free. What right have I to make his
impotency my potency, to make his woe my weal ?
In Figure 503^, these Christian vivisectionists have
actually stuck up a rabbit with a nail through each foot
and in an attitude grimly suggestive of their man-god
upon the cross. The brutal burlesque is theirs, not
mine. But in the figures on page 158, the cat, my
favourite among all the animals, is exposed in three
attitudes of vivisectional agony. I finish this at “ the
wee short hour ayont the twal,” and go to bed to pass a
sleepless night. Visions of my lost friend, the “ Prodigal
’Catalogue of apparatus and appliances for experiments with
animals, issued by F. and M. Lautenschlager, Berlin. Translated
into English by Paul Griinfeld, who was nominated at the request
of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, by the librarian of the British
Museum. The illustrations, which have been reproduced by
photographic zinco-etching, are fac-similes of the originals, and have
been placed beside the letterpress as they appear in the original
catalogue. Second Edition.—Twentieth Thousand. Printed for
The National Anti-Vivisection Society, 92, Victoria Street, London.
j
�VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
II
Son,” will pass before me, between my closed but
sleepless eyes and heaven’s dome filled with the awful
stars. His remains lie affectionately interred in the small
plot of garden behind my home in London, and a giant
Scots thistle from Galloway keeps vigil over his grave.
My ever tenderly remembered “ Prodigal Son,”
who was young and happy, and to whom life was
dear, yet died like a philosopher. I feel convinced that
he knew he was dying; but he died like a hero. He
knew he was dying; but he knew nothing about the sting
having been taken from death by the reputed sacrifice
of an old-time carpenter; he did not know that death had
ever had any special sting. As I nursed him, he only
looked up with a deep and tender mournfulness into my
tearful eyes. I have among “ my puir earth-born
companions and fellow mortals,” had pet pigs, pet
bullocks, pet horses, pet rats, pet sheep, pet. crows and
pet owls. I never had the self-conceit to feel myself so
superior to any of them that I presumed to regard them
as subordinates; I regarded them as friends, and (I wish
I could say the same of the human animal) not one
of them ever betrayed me.
I read inexpressible volumes of pathos in the counten
ance of my expiring feline friend. His teeth, which he had
often used upon me playfully, were visible between his
parted lips, as he panted for laborious breath. And, as
he cast upon me his last look, there was an eloquence
therein which can never be expressed in any weak words of
mine. It meant: “ Dearest friend, Saladin, my poor green
eyes, of which you were the delight, are closing. I am in
pain. It is growing dark. My one regret is, I shall see
you no more.”
I am aware that what I here express is only the
emotionalism of an intense zoophilist who sometimes feels
inclined to doubt that “ the lower animals ” are the lower
animals at all, it being difficult to get lower than the
�12
VICARIOUS
SUFFERING.
average J. Smith, and impossible to get lower than the
lowest J. Smith.
If, in the awful arcanum of inexorable Fate, I cannot
have my soul saved without a tortured Christ, or my body
cured without a vivisected Cat, let soul and body perish.
I am not without egoistic self-esteem; but I have
also moral self-respect, and this latter revolts at my
accepting of weal at the cost of another’s woe. Barbaric
conception of pristine savages ! If my soul cannot be
saved without another’s blood and agony—Let it be lost.
Doom, I face thee and whatever thou mayest have in
reserve for me j and I decline to escape my weird through
the anguish of a Christ on the Cross, or, through its
natural, sequence, the agony of a Cat on the “ Operation
Board.” God, whom I cannot formulate in thought, but
whom I meet in ecstatic vision, Thou wilt not permit r
me to be lost because I decline to accept of a cruel
coward’s method of being saved.
�A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY.
*
The hold the ring has on Spain is enormous. There
are four weekly journals in Madrid devoted solely to the
interests and literature of the bull-ring. There are dozensof books written on the subject, and on every day of a
fight Madrid is simply painted green with copies of the
“Programa de Espectaculos,” a four-page sheet sold fora,
penny by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hawkers.
This gives pictures of the bulls to be slaughtered on theday in question, their pedigrees and owners and short
histories of the animals, together with the names of all
the performers in the day’s spectacle. About an hour
before the time for the show to begin the picadores,
dressed in their clumsy but picturesque costume, set out
from their hotel in the Puerta del Sol for the Plaza de
Toros, about a mile away.
These gentry are mounted on fine horses, not the sorry
hacks they use in the-ring, and are followed by immense
crowds of admiring men, women, and children, who con
sider it an honour to be near the heroes.
At this time of the year the spectacle begins at about
four, earlier or later, according to the number of animals
to be killed. The scene for a couple of hours before this
time beggars description. A sense of furious struggle,
wild desire, fierce eagerness hangs over the city—comes
pouring down with the rays of the hot sun, rises with the
dust from the suffocating streets, gets into the blood of
every Madrileno, and compels him or her—for women go
to bull-fights in their thousands—to make a mad rush for
the place of slaughter.
Even if he cannot afford to enter the show—and it is
an old saying that a Spaniard will sell his shirt to go
Daily Express, May 21st, 1902.
�14
A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY.
to a bull-fight—to be near the ring is something. Per
haps he may hear a wounded bull bellow with rage or
a dying horse scream in his agony, and he is certain
to see the chief actors come or go.
Private carriages, with well-dressed men and daintilyclad women, electric trams succeeding each other with
amazing rapidity, each laden to the full with sweltering
humanity (or inhumanity), horse and mule trams that
use no rails, but clatter madly over the cobbles, extra
omnibuses, and open cars drawn by five, six, or eight
red-tasselled mules, all dash at full gallop for the Plaza
de Toros to turn out their loads and tear back for
more.
As the time grows short they come only part of the
way back and turn at the half-way mark to hurry on
belated stragglers. It is not gay, it is feverish, exciting,
bewildering. Men’s faces are set and keen. There is
no badinage or merriment, even if it were possible,
while thundering over the ill-paved streets. The one
idea is to get to the fight quickly. Anger is swift to the
surface, drivers are urged and sworn at, and woe be to the
wretched horse or mule that stumbles. He is greeted
with a shower of curses from roof and window of the
vehicle and flogged unmercifully by his driver.
If anyone is of opinion that bull-fighting does not
brutalize these people, let him watch the crowd that goes
to the Plaza de Toros any Sunday in Madrid. He need
not go inside the amphitheatre—he will see enough out
side to change his mind.
We are having fights nearly every day just at present.
I went to Thursday’s contest, and saw six bulls and
fifteen horses slaughtered. I was disgusted and bored,
and came away simply worn out, not with excitement,
but with a sinking stomach and fluttering heart. My
first feeling was that of anger at the men in the ring
for brutally sacrificing the poor horse, who, with his
bandaged eye on to the side towards the bull, was made
to receive broadside the cruel horns of the maddened
and worried brute. The result was sickening. The
horse was ripped open, and amidst screams of pain he
was forced to stand again with his entrails dragging on
the sand of the arena. Every step he took he trod on
�A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY.
15
his entrails, but was not allowed to lie down and die until
he could no longer bear the burden of the picador, who
urged him forward as long as possible with spurs while his
servant slashed the dying brute over the head with a
*
stick
I do not intend to describe the fight; you would
probably not publish the revolting details if I did. I
merely give one instance which was multiplied over a
dozen time with variations more loathing and gory as the
insistent crowd’s lust for blood grew with what it fed upon.
Finally, the bull, his fore part a crimson flood, spirit
exhausted, an easy victim for the cowards who were
torturing him, was put out of his misery by the matador.
For three hours this went on until the six bulls had been
dragged out dead by mules.
Bull-fighting is a cruel, soul-debasing sight. Men,
women, and children must become brutalised made
callous to suffering and pain. It must and does stamp
the character of the people who love it, and degrade
them. Many Spaniards will tell you that they do not
care for it, and never go. They wish to have the “ sport ”
stopped, but they are few compared to the millions here
who would cause civil war rather than their favourite
pastime should be abolished. In some parts of the United
States the law does not permit a butcher to sit on a jury
trying a prisoner for capital crime, because he is sup
posed to be accustomed to the sight of blood. If such a
law were in force here it would be hard to obtain a jury
in Madrid, where nearly everyone is a butcher, by proxy
s>t least
After witnessing a. bull-fight it is easy to understand
Spanish cruelty in Cuba and elsewhere, and to realise that
it was in this Spain that the Inquisition originated- You
may see to-day in Madrid the square, Plaza Mayor, where
thousands of persons were tortured and burned to death
to the great delight of the spectators crowding the bal
conies about the four sides of the square. It has changed
but little in appearance, except that the instruments of
torture have been removed a little further away to the Plaza
de Toros.
,, c u •
There are many laws in Spain regulating bull-fighting,
mostly in favour of the institution. As an example of its
�A CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY.
legality, I may merely point out that should all the horses
available be killed at a corrida the law allows the managers
of the rings to go into the public streets and commandeer
the first horses at hand, paying for them, of course. There
are more than two hundred and fifty bull-rings in Spain,
About five hundred fights are held every year, in which
one thousand five hundred bulls and six thousand horses
are killed. These are average figures. It is impossible
to get any reliable figures of the expense of this national
institution, but it must be very large. Matadors of first
rank make sometimes from ^£10,000 to_^'i£)ooo a year,
and everybody finds money for the bull-fight, though
schools suffer in this country, where about fifty per cent,
of the people are illiterate.
London: W. Stewart & Co., 41, Farrin^don Street, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vicarious suffering : our sanctions for cruelty
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ross, William Stewart [1844-1906]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes A Christian holiday, article reprinted from the Daily Express, 21 May 1902. Reprinted from the Agnostic Journal, 31 May 1902. Includes bibliographical references. Annotations in ink and pencil. "by Saladin" [title page]. Saladin is the pseudonym of William Stewart Ross. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
W. Stewart & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1902]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N600
Subject
The topic of the resource
Ethics
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Vicarious suffering : our sanctions for cruelty), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bullfighting
Cruelty
NSS
Suffering
Torture
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/de9f894050b91e563e604de1a24ac51e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=YY3sYwwea-RN9vcQ4NMS4yGyWdicpFoBLFd262vKBUwjTh913%7ES6u2QAy5B13DKQUTezX1o0zxU%7EAUG5n%7EVfagQFVQmJXrExxH%7EjcuT2XZ%7EL5QRiGLAjb9K6GVk5EcLx9qjsn9fl-VoMXYjIA%7EFlsfhTsUKNV0NQs794NKqAD-6wsD859itN4xeAQMdkjWG0AOL45ZugFw17NgzpwWBkevrhc9jiYLJOcfCjylp4x5SrnauwC-XtK4D4udiuzJnvJVZmecLJEBIjX7Bisyv6UyT8kSN3jjY9SbsuHZWVF-mqhw-ryPACiDaP4QajcG4iSTsJ8a5stPI-p8TnknvPQA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
a5df28e1cd191edd327feeaea4c76d5d
PDF Text
Text
A FEW THOUGHTS
ON THE
^hilosopltg of ©toil anb (Suffering,
From the Stand-point of Reason and Intuition.
It is impossible for a reflective mind to
contemplate the wonders of creation with
out feelings of awe and admiration at the
manifestations of wisdom and power dis
played in its marvellous adaptations and
developments. The beauty, the grandeur,
the beneficence, that meet us at every
turn, speak of Intelligence and Design.
The Power that governs the varied pheno
mena of nature is apparently unlimited.
Our conceptions of this Almighty Power
will depend either upon the theo’ogical
education we have received, or upon the
deductions of our own reasoning faculties
from the phenomena of earth-life and expe
rience. Starting from premisses which of
necessity must be, to an extent, hypotheti
cal, we proceed to deduce certain principles
which appear to underlie the mysterious
phenomena of Evil and Suffering.
Almost all religious minds will admit the
following propositions: it is therefore not
intended in this paper to discuss them:—
1. That Deity is an Intelligent Principle,
Almighty in Power, and perfect in Good
ness.
2. That Man is an embodied Intelligence,
limited in Power, and imperfect in Goodness.
3. That Man is free to the extent of his
power.
4. That Man survives the change we call
death.
5. That by far the larger portion of
human experiences are pleasurable.
6. That a very large proportion of Evil
and Suffering may be traced to ignorance,
and to errors arising therefrom.
With the rejection of so-called infallible
revelations, the proofs we have of man’s
immortality are scientifically inconclusive.
The universality of the feeling in favour of
immortality may be regarded as a spiritual
instinct. The feeling, however, is not alto
gether one of intuition, but rests upon a
logical necessity, arising out of the utter
impossibility of reconciling the experiences
of life with the existence of a Ruling Power
of infinite Intelligence and Goodness, except
upon some such hypothesis.
A thoughtful mind can hardly rest satis
fied with a negation. When, from the force
of honest convictions, men are compelled
to reject any particular account of the
origin of Evil and Suffering, they are still
pressed with the necessity of forming some
theory to supply the void thereby occa
sioned. The facts are too painfully selfevident to be overlooked in any sytem of
philosophy men may consciously or uncon
sciously entertain. With a profound con
viction of the impossibility of any human
faculties being able to compass the mind of
Omnipotence, we would, with all reverence,
use the powers given to us in endeavouring
�2
A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL AND SUFFERING,
to discover some beneficent purposes which
Evil and Suffering may serve in the Divine
economy.
Our conceptions of Deity will ever be the
reflex of our ideas of Perfection. The em
bodiment of all that is Powerful, Holy,
Righteous, and Good, is man’s highest
conception of God ; and, wherever these
attributes culminate in a high degree in
any human being, that being becomes
man’s best representation or manifestation
of Deity. The immeasurable distance be
tween the finite representation and the
infinite reality must, however, never be
overlooked. Nature, in all its varied phe
nomena, is a manifestation of the Mind of
God. The laws that govern creation are
the expressions of the Divine Will. Motion,
life, sensation, and intelligence, are exhibi
tions of God’s Wisdom and Power. These
manifestations are probably all that man
can know of his Creator in the present
state of existence.
It is impossible to suppose that the
creation of the Universe and all that it
contains is purposeless, or that Creation
can fail to glorify its Creator. If the glory
of God be the object of Creation, it follows
that a Being of infinite Power and Wisdom
must, of necessity, adopt the best means
for the attainment of His purpose. May
we now, without irreverence or presump
tion, assume a necessity even to Deity ?
From the constitution of our nature, we are
justified, I think, iu saying that, according
to finite conceptions, even Deity could not
possibly be glorified by intelligences who
were not free to give or withhold their
homage and affections. We have no facul
ties for perceiving how Infinite Intelligence
could be satisfied with ought less than the
spontaneous love and worship of His own
intelligent creatures. Here, then, in the
free will of man, appears to be the key
which unlocks many of the mysteries at
tached to the presence of Evil and Suffering
in a world created and governed by supreme
Love and Intelligence.
We postulate, then, the Love of the
creature as the desire of the Creator ; and,
if this hypothesis be correct, it follows,
that the free will of the creature is an
indispensable condition to the spontaneity
and perfection of that Love. If this be
allowed, we may be said to have arrived at
the conception of an adequate purpose in
Creation, viz., the generation, development,
and education of intelligences capable of per
ceiving, appreciating, and enjoying, by the
spontaneous efforts of their own free will,
the Love of their Creator. In this way we
may regard the Creator as providing an out
let for the overflowing warmth of His
Love, in the creation of individualized in
telligences capable of glorifying their Divine
Author, in the appreciation and enjoyment
of the endless manifestations of His Perfec
tions. On our hypothesis, it is necessary
that the will of man, though under laws,
should be absolutely free to the extent
of his power; and experience proves the
truth of this position. Hence arises the
necessity for an education, and this brings
us to the consideration of the plan by which
the Creator, as we conceive, is accomplish
ing His divine purpose.
In considering the phenoifiena of earth
experiences we naturally turn our attention
first to the material Universe in which we
find ourselves, and which, from our point
of view, is regarded as the projection of
the Mind of God into the plane of action,
resulting (possibly, through the condensa
tion of spiritual principles, by a process
incomprehensible by us) in the atoms out
of which the Universe has been developed.
These atoms, under the influence of the
Divine Spirit, fulfil, by chemical changes,
involving concentrations, combinations, and
separations, the will of Him from whom
�FROM THE STAND POINT OF REASON AND INTUITION.
they emanated. It is the constant influx I
of the Eternal Spirit into these atomic con
densations, called matter, which appears to
give rise to the dualism of Life and Death,
Good and Evil, which we see throughout
nature.*
The action and reaction of this dualism
is the pulsation of the heart of Deity, pro- |
ducing and upholding at its every beat the
varied phenomena of mind and matter ;
and thus is evolved, in a perpetual series of
progressive and ascending degrees, the end
less variety of atomic combinations or
organisms of which the Universe, with its
varied productions, is composed ; each at
tracting that which it needs and is capable
of receiving from the fountain of Universal
Spirit ; the only limit being capacity, the
only condition receptivity. Thus, from the
most rudimentary atomic combinations to
the most refined human organism, all draw
from the same illimitable Source that which
they are capable of receiving and appropri
ating ; and this by laws which are immu
table, because infinitely wise.
Inanimate Nature thus derives the Motion
by which all its changes and developments
are effected : this is the character of its
receptivity, and this it attracts from the
energy of the Divine Spirit, which fills all
that is. The vegetable kingdom, by virtue
of its advanced organization, in addition to
Motion, is receptive of Life ; and, to the
extent of its capacity, is filled from the
same Divine source. The animal kingdom,
embracing the properties of the lower or
ganizations, advances a step higher in its
receptive capacity, and attracts to itself
Sensation, answering to the instinctive fa
culties, enabling it to fulfil its part in the
*“In the divine order,” says Emerson, '‘intellect
is primary ; nature secondary. It is the memory of
the mind. That which once existed in intellect as
pure law has now taken a body as nature. It existed
already in the mind in solution : now it has been pre
cipitated, and the bright sediment is the world.”
Divine drama of life; whilst, from the same
inexhaustible source in the progress of de
velopment (or order of creation), the human
organism, in all its endless varieties, attracts
to itself, in addition to the faculties pos
sessed by the lower organisms, all those
Spiritual powers of thought and ratiocina
tion which constitute Man a rational being
— an Embryo Spirit ; having, compared
with the animal world, increased perceptive
powers and a receptive capacity for higher
manifestations of the Divine intelligence.
From the reception of this intelligent
principle by the refined human organism,
arises that which constitutes the difference
between the human and animal kingdoms;
a difference not so much in kind as degree,
viz.: —of enlarged perceptive powers—more
refined susceptibilities, and a more acute
sensitiveness, enabling man, by the exer
cise of these improved faculties, to acquire
a knowledge of the constitution of his nature
and the laws that govern it. From an in
tuitive or emotional feeling, arising out of
the development of the intellectual faculties,
originated, most probably, man’s first con
ception of a Creator or God. As these
increased powers of perception and ratio
cination are evolved, the moral sense be
comes developed, and a knowledge of what
is not inaptly termed Good and Evil, with
its attendant responsibilities, is attained.
Thus, the first rays of Light from the
Divine Intelligence break through the dark
clouds of man’s animal nature (dark by
comparison only), producing within him a
consciousness, to an extent, of the dualism
of that nature, and a recognition, to an
extent, of the Will of the Divine Spirit
“in whom he lives, and moves, and has
his being.”
The Light of the Divine Spirit once re
cognised, Conscience may be said to be
formed; and, however dimly this light may
be discerned during the process of intel
�4
A FEW THOUGHTS ON T1IE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL AND SUFFERING,
lectual development, to that extent, and law, and can no longer shield himself under
that extent only, is man responsible to God the plea of ignorance. Man may, from ignor
for the action of his Will. Thus arises the ance, err and suffer; but if his conscience
conflict between so-called Good and Evil— reproach him not, he cannot be said to sin.
the higher and the lower Good—the Flesh The silent monitor, once recognized, ever
and the Spirit. This conflict originates in remains a witness and an accuser. In the
the dualism of our nature, educating us by torments of this inward self-condemnation
its action and reaction, through and by and remorse may be traced the chastening
ourselves, in the wise order of Providence, of a Father’s love, educating in suffering the
into the perception of that which alone can will of His wayward and erring child.
The more we search into the phenomena
make us intelligent, wise, good and happy,
of nature, the more impressed do we become
viz.The knowledge and love of God.
The active recognition of the Spiritual with the fixity of the laws that govern its
character of this warfare between the lower every change, and the marvellous adap
and higher natures, of which man, as an tation of means to ends. This produces in
entity, is a compound, may be well defined the observant mind a conviction amounting
as being “born again of the Spirit.” It to absolute certainty that the wisdom and
brings man into conscious contact with the beneficence here displayed cannot be lack
Divine Spirit, and man perceives, as of ing in the higher phenomena of human life
himself, the Will of God in the eternal and destiny. That the Creator is absolutely
principles of Love and Righteousness, which impartial in His government of the world, is
are the points of universal agreement be to the reflective mind so obvious, that it is
tween men of every creed. And here, needless to dwell upon the fact. Were it
as ever in nature, for God is absolutely not so, all science w'ould be at fault, and
impartial, the conditions of receptivity wise men would lose hope if once it could
are dependent upon the capacity of the be proved that the acts of God are capri
Organism and the direction of the Will. cious. On the contrary, the sun shines and
Experience testifies to the fact that, if the the rain falls on the evil and the good alike.
Light of the Divine Spirit is actively lived If this be so, and if it be allowed that all
out, the capacity to receive further light which emanates from the hands of Infinite
(all irrational influences apart) is corres Wisdom must of necessity be perfectly ad
pondingly increased, and this quite inde apted to the purpose it is intended to fulfil,
pendent of creeds or views which, when we are justified in regarding the world in
not the result of personal thought and which we live, with all the varied expe
investigation, are dependent mainly upon riences of humanity, as the best school for
the development and education of free
educational influences.
When the will of man is in harmony with intelligences, who are to work out their
the will of God, there is Peace, no matter own endlessly diversified individualities
what the stage of intellectual development, (which in itself we conceive to be a great
or what theological views its possessor has source of happiness), and develop by and
imbibed. If, on the other hand, the voice through their individual and combined
of Conscience is disregarded, then the light efforts the inherent possibilities of their
of the Spirit becomes obscured, but not ex nature.
Broken laws fail to explain the whole of
tinguished. When once the spirit of man
has perceived the will of God, he is under the mystery of Evil and Suffering, as is evi
�TROM THE STAND-TOINT OF REASON AND INTUITION.
as necessary aids to man, in provoking
efforts which an atmosphere of ease and
security would most assuredly discourage.
Hence, while, on the one hand, the Love
of the Creator is displayed in providing a
series of ever advancing motives for man’s
progressive aspirations, so, on the other
hand, God’s Wisdom is equally displayed
in providing, by laws that may appear
harsh aud cruel, those necessary incentives
to action and effort by attention to which
man’s health, progress, and happiness, are
assuredly to be attained. Evil—that is,
lower good-and Suffering are the insepar
able conditions of sensitive organic life.
Without the aids of Evil and Suffering we
are unable to conceive any possible means
by which Man, as a free agent, could have
attained to the higher good, or appre
hended Truth and Goodness. Evil and
Suffering are the levers by which God
moves the world.
We are apt to overlook the compensatory
nature of the laws that prevail in connec
tion with Evil and Suffering. The unde
veloped mau has pleasures unappreciated
by the man of refinement. The hardships
ho is thought to endure are more apparent
than real, and his wants are comparatively
few. The anxieties attending material
prosperity, the nervous susceptibilities of
the cultured intellect, and the acute sen
sitiveness to pain of the refined organism,
are absent to a great extent in the ignorant
and undeveloped. The so called evil man,
whilst lacking the power of appreciating
and enjoying the higher pleasures attend
ant upon a perception and appreciation of
the higher good, is nevertheless compen
sated to a degree seldom duly estimated, in
the enjoyment he derives from the gratifica
tion of the appetites of his lower nature.
On the other hand, it must be allowed that
* “ The law of growth,” says a recent writer, “ is the finest, the noblest, and the holiest men
this, that all progress is preceded by calamity, that
this world has produced, have been mould
all improvement is based upon defect.”
dent in accidents by natural phenomena,
and the inevitable decay of the organism,
with its attendant weaknesses and ailments.
In some way, Evil and Suffering are neces
sary accompaniments to progress. Why it
is so we do not know ; but if we are able
to discover Love and Wisdom in the men
tal sufferings and remorse attending the
violation of those moral laws which are re
vealed to all in whom Conscience is formed,
we are justified in concluding that the lower
form of physical suffering is also the best
accomplishment of the Divine ends.
Where the intellect is undeveloped or
the conscience seared by the vacillation of
the human Will, producing a tendency to
physical disorganization or mental retro
gression, we can conceive how beneficent
may be, and probably is, human sensitive
ness to pain. The experience of pain leads
to the investigation of its cause, and this
tends to reflection, and ultimates in know
ledge of a physical and mental character,
the benefit of which, in the process of
human education, is incalculable. This
knowledge is cumulative; and, when men
are free enough to think and investigate
for themselves, and to live in harmony
with the Divine laws, progressively un
folded to the earnest searchers after Truth,
then may the first victory over evil and
suffering be said to be won
As, in the evolution of the world, physi
cal convulsions and disasters are the means
by which, in the inscrutable wisdom of
Providence, Progress, Order, and Beauty
are attained, so, in the development and
education of mind, does it seem a necessity
that human effort should be provoked by
convulsions and catastrophes, which com
pel observation, reflection, and effort.*
Thus considered, Evil and Suffering appear
�6
A PEW THOUGHTS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL AND SUFFERING,
ed and purified in the furnace of affliction
and suffering.
How could man know aught of sympathy
and love, were it not for sorrow and suffer
ing which draw them out ? How could man
appreciate the beautiful as beauty, if there
were nothing in the shape of contrast to
guide him to recognize it ? It appears im
possible that self-educated free intelligences
could ever have attained to a knowledge
of such circumstances as Virtue, Pleasure,
Peace, Knowledge, and Truth, without
coming into contact with their opposites,
Vice, Pain, Strife, Ignorance, and Error.
The one is learned by and through cont.ic'.
with the other. Thus, the so-called Evils
of life may truly be looked upon as lower
Goods. Again, the Good of one generation
has been the Evil of the next. The Good of
the ancient Hebrews was to destroy their
enemies. The Good of Jesus was to love
them. By far the larger portion of the hu
man race are still under the influence of
the Evil (lower Good), and desire to destroy
their enemies. The time will probably
come when the religion of Jesus and other
noble reformers will be understood, and the
higher Good they advocated be actively
displayed by the enlightened governments
of a civilized world.
The principle of selfishness, inherent in
sentient life, is an absolute necessity to its
progress, and affords an apt illustration of
the truth of the proposition that all socalled evil may be regarded as undeveloped
good. Selfishness, born of sensation, gene
rates desire, desire provokes action, action
stimulates thought, and the exercise of
thought (observation and reflection) deve
lops intelligence. Indigenous to the soil of
intelligence are those spiritual faculties or
perceptions which correspond to the moral
sense, in the exercise of which man inspires
eternal principles from the all-pervading
Spirit of Deity. The evolution and cultiva
tion of these spiritual faculties appear to
be at once the object and business of life.
Man thus learns by and through the selfish
ness of his animal nature, to perceive, by
comparison, the higher good of disinterested
unselfishness or love in its highest (spiritual)
sense.
Man, thus, is born in ignorance, and de
veloped gradually from the lower Good to
the higher, that he may learn for himself,
through the experiences of life, which are
alternately painful and pleasurable, of his
own free will to choose the higher and
forsake the lower Good. The evils and
sufferings of life from this point of view
may be truly and intelligently regarded as
beneficent necessities, through and by which
man is enabled to perceive God—first, in His
works, then, in the operation of His laws,
evidences of His will—and, finally, rise to
the power of appreciating and enjoying the
endless manifestations of the Divine love
and perfections. If we can thus trace, with
our present limited capacities and know
ledge, evidences of wisdom and goodness in
the so-called evils and sufferings of hu
manity, constituting a beneficent necessity |
in the development and education of free I
intelligences, we may reasonably infer that
the sufferings of the animal kingdom are I
neither vindictive nor purposeless. We are
here more in the dark, from the fact of our 1
being unable to enter into the experiences i
of the animal creation, or to gauge their
sensitiveness to pleasure or pain. Change h
and decay, life and death, good and evil, |,
certainly seem inseparable conditions to the |s
combination of spirit with matter, in its la
early stage of development. Thus, with |di
animals as with man, the individual amount Bn
of suffering can only be fairly reckoned in
i
the account; and again the term of suffering I: i
must not certainly be regarded without refer- »■■si
ence to the pleasure of existence. In the Ijj
case of slaughtered animals, or those who
�FROM THE STAND-POINT OF REASON AND INTUITION.
are the victims of beasts of prey, they pro
bably have none of those sufferings by sus
pense and anticipation which must be far
greater than the sudden, unexpected,
and, perhaps, unconscious separation of
life from the organism. In addition
to this, from the lack of sensitive
ness in the organisms themselves, the
sufferings of animals may possibly be re
duced to the minimum. The laws relating
to the conjunction of spirit with matter (if
God be impartial) are compensatory. The
capacity for enjoyment is coextensive with
the sensitiveness to pain ; hence, the more
refined and complex the organism the
greater the capacity for pleasure, the more
sensitive is it to pain. On the other hand,
the lower and simpler the organic combina
tion the less acutely it experiences either
pleasure or pain. Our ignorance as to the
experiences and destiny of the lower king
doms makes it more difficult for us to trace
a cause for their undoubted sufferings ; but
that there is no suffering without a reason,
a purpose, and a compensation, is shown to
us by those beneficent results of suffering
we are enabled to trace in the kingdom to
which we belong.
To sum up our thoughts. It appears
that all creation derives from the Divine
Spirit, who upholds and governs it, that
which it is adapted to receive and appro
priate in order to fulfil its destiny. Man,
an intelligent individuality, derives from
the Divine Energy which fills the Universe
that Life which the condition of his animal
organization enables him to receive and ap
propriate ; and, from the Divine Intelli
gence, that Light which from his condition
physically., mentally, and morally, he is ca
pable of receiving and appropriating. Phy
sical conditions are dependent upon the
bodily organism which, though capable of
considerable modification and improvement
by the action of man’s free will, neverthe
7
less, to an extent, retains its inherent in
dividuality. This involves an endless va
riety of receptive capacities, a wise and
beneficent arrangement, contributinggreatly
to human happiness. The condition of men
tal receptivity depends upon the degree of
intellectual development and mental culture,
the extent of a man’s knowledge, and the
perfect freedom he enjoys to observe, reflect,
and investigate. The condition of man’s
moral receptivity is dependent upon the ac
tion of his will. When a man is honestly
living out his conscientious convictions as to
what is Good and True, that man (with per
fect intellectual freedom) must of necessity
be progressing in the knowledge and love of
his Creator; and, where this is combined
with a healthy organism, we are justified
in regarding that man as possessing as much
of human happiness as humanity is capable
of enjoying. Thus, simply stated:—We
have what we are capable of receiving,
and are what we make ourselves. The in
comprehensible Intelligence, whom we call
God, governs His creation by laws that are
infinitely wise. The apparent contradic
tions and inexplicable expedients that
appear to be adopted in the evolution of a
world and the development of individualized
intelligences are the conditions by which the
immutable laws of God are transforming a
nebula of chaotic Atoms into a World of
beauty, grandeur, and intelligence, in
whose womb are generated, and on whose
bosom are developed, educated and puri
fied, immortal spirit-entities, who, in the
furnaces of affliction and suffering, and in
the warfare against the propensities and
passions of their lower nature, are made
thereby meet to glorify their Creator in an
active obedience to His will, in which is
involved their own everlasting happi
ness.
If this is clear to us, it follows that the
sufferings of the Animal Kingdom are also
�8
A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVIL AND SUFFERING/
the results of wise and beneficent laws, em
ploying apparently cruel agents in the ac
complishment of equally benevolent ends.
Under any circumstances, the difficulties are
enormously increased on the theory of Evil
and Suffering being the result of a single act
of disobedience committed in the infancy of
the race.* Earth-Life thus appears to be
the first chapter in a Book the pages of
which are endless, the theme of which is
the Wisdom, Power, and Goodness of God,
and its earliest teachings the rudimentary
principles of Spirit existence. To attain a
knowledge of these principles, appears to be
the work of every individual soul, and the
means best adapted to the purpose are, in
the wisdom of God, the experiences inci
dental to this stage of existence. In the
action and reaction of God’s immutable laws
(material and spiritual), men are ever learn
ing lessons, the full value of which, like
children at school, they will realize in after
life.
In a recent essay by Moncure D. Conway
on “ Theism, Atheism, and the Problem of
Evil,” he says, —“ Seeing so much, we re
member that we have come to it only very
gradually. We know that the human mind
once saw disorder in many regions where it
now sees order; that knowledge reveals
good in many things which ignorance held
altogether evil, consequently we are war
ranted in believing that more and more ex
perience, and increasing knowledge, will
make clear the surrounding realm of dark
ness.” .... “ If we could now by a
word remove from the world all that has
been done for it by pain and evil, we should
behold man relapsing from the height he
has won by struggle with unfriendly ele
ments and influences, falling back from
point to point, losing one after another the
energies gained by mastering evil, and sink
ing through all the stages of retrogression
to some miserable primal form too insigni
ficant to be attacked, too nerveless to suffer. ”
. . • . ‘ ‘ But even now this darkness
rests only upon the final cause of evil, that
is, upon the inquiry why the ends secured
by evil were not reached by a more merci
ful method. If, in reply to the question,
Why is not the universe painless ? we must
answer, We do not know. In reply to the
question, What good end does evil serve ?
we may answer, We know very well.”
I am here reminded of a question put to a
distressed parent by a little girl during a
prolonged and painful illness, ‘‘Why does
Maggie sutler so?” The parent was wise,
consequently silent. Religion may tranquilize, intuition whisper hope, and philo
sophyproduce resignation; but reason is here
out of its depth. We can but say,—we do not
know. Theories are propounded, and it is
impossible for thoughtfuT’taen, consciously
or unconsciously, to avoid entertaining some
views with regard to the presence of Evil
and Suffering in a World created by Infinite
Wisdom, governed by Infinite Love, and
upheld by Infinite Power; but so long as
we are under the influence of reason, and
alive to the dictates of conscience, we can
* The sincere evangelical Christian believes that not rest satisfied with any explanation of
the Evils and Sufferings of men and animals, and the
natural dissolution of living organisms, are all the re this mysterious phenomenon which involves
sults of “The Fall”; that death leads to an eternity
the contradiction of the highest and noblest
of misery for all who are unable intellectually to ap
impulses of our nature, or the absence of
prehend and consciously to lay hold of such doc
trines as “The Trinity” and “The Atonement.” It those principles of Righteousness and Jus
must be left to the reason and conscience of intelli
tice which are the intuitions of the civilized
gent men to judge on which side the balance of proba
conscience.
bility lies.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A few thoughts on the philosophy of evil and suffering, from the stand-point of reason and intuition
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 8 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed in double columns.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[187-?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5358
Subject
The topic of the resource
Rationalism
Evil
Ethics
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A few thoughts on the philosophy of evil and suffering, from the stand-point of reason and intuition), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Evil
Reason
Suffering