The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-06-26 00:00:00

SUPPLEMENT TO
bt Riberami

AND GENERAL COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER,

selves beneficial, implanted by an all-good Creator for
the wisest and best purposes. Take two of these—

ANGER AND ALARM.

Throughout the whole course of animal life these emotions
are deeply implanted. In the feeblest animal form, alarm is
seen manifesting itself on the approach or the contact of any
unknown object. And as we rise in the scale of being to man
himself, the motive becomes, indeed, less obtrusive in its
modes of operation, more refined and disguised in its character,
but not less really present and powerful. It lives a silent yet
watchful sentinel in every human bosom, conservative, not
only of life, but of all that gives beauty and dignity and happi-
ness to life. How vividly, for instance, does it reign in the
mother for the care of her offspring ; in the householder for
the care of his goods; in the citizen for the care of the com-
monwealth '• in the maiden for the care of her virtue ! It is
everywhere the guardian of life and its treasures. Whenever
life becomes intensified, fraught as with a deeper wealth and
fulness of possession, then alarm, however demonstrative,
stands a more vigilant guardian. And, did it not do so,—
the soul not readily fluttered and put up when destruction
threatened,—what an invaded and desecrated thing would life
become !

Anger is in itself a righteous principle ; it is
an indiomation against injustice and wrong ; it
urges the strong to be the protector of the weak, the
brave the supporter of the injured. It is only when
this emotion degenerates, when it goes into excess,
and changes into passion, that it becomes sinful and
injurious.
Pain and suffering are, if we rightly consider
them, absolutely necessary for our very existence in a
world like ours. Pain points out where disease is, and
guides the physician to the cure : pain manifests
where danger is, and warns us against it : a little pain
is often the preventive against death.
Again, what a warning voice there is in sorrow !
what a check on the first yielding to sin is it to
reap the first crop of sorrow ! How often a little
sorrow is a preventer of a load of future ills.
But then neither sorrow nor pain are parts of our
nature ; they are not, like pleasure and enjoyment, a
part of our system : there is no part of our organism
whose direct action is pain ; pleasure is : all the
functions of our system tend directly to give pleasure
and enjoyment in their proper use : pain is something
which attacks the organism, and is superinduced upon
it—pain is the exception—pleasure the rule. This is
a very important consideration ; had it been otherwise,
we do not see how we could meet the infidel's argu-
ment against the goodness of God, when he objects
the existence of evil. As it is, the argument must be
one ad kominem, or rather ad ignorantiam

It is undeniable that, if God had so willed, there would
have been no pain in the world; but we are by no means so
sure of the conclusion implied in this—a very different con-
clusion seems quite likely. For is it not the very same con-
dition on which pain is contingent that yields pleasure in
abundance ? Is it not the very same nervous sensibility,
which gives forth, as its normal play, the sense of enjoyment
that gives forth, as its abnormal play, the sense of pain ! Is
it not the very same medinfn which overflows with gladness,
that may be even invaded to madness ? Supposing the or-
ganism had been made incapable of pain, how do we know that
it would have retained its capacity of pleasure ? Supposing
it had been so constituted as to have absolutely excluded the
force of disease, how do we know that it could have owed the
spring, or felt the joy of health ? We put the question thus,
because we really do not know, and cannot know. * * *
A wholly different constitution placed in wholly different cir-
cumstances might have possessed one without the other. But
this is an utterly idle question to entertain; for, after all, for
Might we can tell, such a constitution, in such circumstances,
might not have been nearly so good as the present.

To theorise on such subjects is not only useless, but
also positively mischievous. This is undoubtedly the
only way of speaking of this matter : we are cognizant
to one state of things, viz., the state we are in : we
have a revelation respecting this state, and only this :
we have faculties adapted for this state : we have not
(at present at least) power to comprehend any other :
"we see through a glass darkly." Explanation is out
of the question : theorycan lead to nothing satisfactory.
In like manner, the author treats the subject of the
origin of evil ; he mentions the four modes of explana-