Bodily Sufferings

255. What about bodily sufferings?

May they not be sufficiently acute to disturb the sage’s tranquillity? Aristotle assents; the Stoics were of a different opinion, and even the Epicureans likewise.

Descartes revived the doctrine of these philosophers; he says in the letter just quoted: ’that even amid the worst misfortunes and the most overwhelming sufferings one may always be content, if only one knows how to exercise reason’. M. Bayle says concerning this (Reply to the Questions of a Provincial, vol. III, ch. 157, p. 991) ’that it is saying nothing, that it is prescribing for us a remedy whose preparation hardly anyone understands’. I hold that the thing is not impossible, and that men could attain it by dint of meditation and practice. For apart from the true martyrs and those who have been aided in wonderful wise from on high, there have been counterfeits who imitated them. That Spanish slave who killed the Carthaginian governor in order to avenge his master and who evinced great joy in his deed, even in the greatest tortures, may shame the philosophers. Why should not one go as far as he? One may say of an advantage, as of a disadvantage:

Cuivis potest accidere, quod cuiquam potest.

256. But even to-day entire tribes, such as the Hurons, the Iroquois, the Galibis and other peoples of America teach us a great lesson on this matter: one cannot read without astonishment of the intrepidity and well-nigh insensibility wherewith they brave their enemies, who roast them over a slow fire and eat them by slices. If such people could retain their physical superiority and their courage, and combine them with our acquirements, they would surpass us in every way,

Extat ut in mediis turris aprica casis.

They would be, in comparison with us, as a giant to a dwarf, a mountain to a hill:

Quantus Eryx, et quantus Athos, gaudetque nivali

Vertice se attollens pater Apenninus ad auras.

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257. All that which is effected by a wonderful vigour of body and mind in these savages, who persist obstinately in the strangest point of honour, might be acquired in our case by training, by well-seasoned mortifications, by an overmastering joy founded on reason, by great practice in preserving a certain presence of mind in the midst of the distractions and impressions most liable to disturb it. Something of this kind is related of the ancient Assassins, subjects and pupils of the Old Man or rather the Seigneur (Senior) of the Mountain. Such a school (for a better purpose) would be good for missionaries who would wish to return to Japan. The Gymnosophists of the ancient Indians had perhaps something resembling this, and that Calanus, who provided for Alexander the Great the spectacle of his burning alive, had doubtless been encouraged by the great examples of his masters and trained by great sufferings not to fear pain. The wives of these same Indians, who even to-day ask to be burned with the bodies of their husbands, seem still to keep something of the courage of those ancient philosophers of their country. I do not expect that there should straightway be founded a religious order whose purpose would be to exalt man to that high pitch of perfection: such people would be too much above the rest, and too formidable for the authorities. As it rarely happens that people are exposed to extremes where such great strength of mind would be needed, one will scarce think of providing for it at the expense of our usual comforts, albeit incomparably more would be gained than lost thereby.

258. Nevertheless the very fact that one has no need of that great remedy is a proof that the good already exceeds the evil. Euripides also said:

πλειω τα χρηστα των κακων ειναι βροτοις.

Mala nostra longe judico vinci a bonis.

Homer and divers other poets were of another mind, and men in general agree with them. The reason for this is that the evil arouses our attention rather than the good: but this same reason proves that the evil is more rare. One must therefore not credit the petulant expressions of Pliny, who would have it that Nature is a stepmother, and who maintains that man is the most unhappy and most vain of all creatures. These two epithets do not agree: one is not so very unhappy, when one is full of oneself. It is true [285]that men hold human nature only too much in contempt, apparently because they see no other creatures capable of arousing their emulation; but they have all too much self-esteem, and individually are but too easily satisfied. I therefore agree with Meric Casaubon, who in his notes on the Xenophanes of Diogenes Laertius praises exceedingly the admirable sentiments of Euripides, going so far as to credit him with having said things quae spirant θεοπνευστον pectus. Seneca (Lib. 4, c. 5, De Benefic.) speaks eloquently of the blessings Nature has heaped upon us. M. Bayle in his Dictionary, article ‘Xenophanes’, brings up sundry authorities against this, and among others that of the poet Diphilus in the Collections of Stobaeus, whose Greek might be thus expressed in Latin:

Fortuna cyathis bibere nos datis jubens,

Infundit uno terna pro bono mala.

259. M. Bayle believes that if it were a question only of the evil of guilt, or of moral evil among men, the case would soon be terminated to the advantage of Pliny, and Euripides would lose his action. To that I am not opposed; our vices doubtless exceed our virtues, and this is the effect of original sin. It is nevertheless true that also on that point men in general exaggerate things, and that even some theologians disparage man so much that they wrong the providence of the Author of mankind. That is why I am not in favour of those who thought to do great honour to our religion by saying that the virtues of the pagans were only splendida peccata, splendid vices. It is a sally of St. Augustine’s which has no foundation in holy Scripture, and which offends reason. But here we are only discussing a physical good and evil, and one must compare in detail the prosperities and the adversities of this life. M. Bayle would wish almost to set aside the consideration of health; he likens it to the rarefied bodies, which are scarcely felt, like air, for example; but he likens pain to the bodies that have much density and much weight in slight volume. But pain itself makes us aware of the importance of health when we are bereft of it. I have already observed that excess of physical pleasures would be a real evil, and the matter ought not to be otherwise; it is too important for the spirit to be free. Lactantius (Divin. Instit., lib. 3, cap. 18) had said that men are so squeamish that they complain of the slightest ill, as if it swallowed up all the goods they have enjoyed. M. Bayle says, concerning this, that the very fact that [286]men have this feeling warrants the judgement that they are in evil case, since it is feeling which measures the extent of good or evil. But I answer that present feeling is anything rather than the true measure of good and evil past and future. I grant that one is in evil case while one makes these peevish reflexions; but that does not exclude a previous state of well-being, nor imply that, everything reckoned in and all allowance made, the good does not exceed the evil.

260. I do not wonder that the pagans, dissatisfied with their gods, made complaints against Prometheus and Epimetheus for having forged so weak an animal as man. Nor do I wonder that they acclaimed the fable of old Silenus, foster-father of Bacchus, who was seized by King Midas, and as the price of his deliverance taught him that ostensibly fine maxim that the first and the greatest of goods was not to be born, and the second, to depart from this life with dispatch (Cic., Tuscul., lib. 1). Plato believed that souls had been in a happier state, and many of the ancients, amongst others Cicero in his Consolation (according to the account of Lactantius), believed that for their sins they were confined in bodies as in a prison. They rendered thus a reason for our ills, and asserted their prejudices against human life: for there is no such thing as a beautiful prison. But quite apart from the consideration that, even according to these same pagans, the evils of this life would be counterbalanced and exceeded by the goods of past and future lives, I make bold to say that we shall find, upon unbiassed scrutiny of the facts, that taking all in all human life is in general tolerable. And adding thereto the motives of religion, we shall be content with the order God has set therein. Moreover, for a better judgement of our goods and our evils, it will be well to read Cardan, De Utilitate ex Adversis Capienda, and Novarini, De Occultis Dei Beneficiis.

261. M. Bayle dilates upon the misfortunes of the great, who are thought to be the most fortunate: the constant experience of the fair aspect of their condition renders them unaware of good, but greatly aware of evil. Someone will say: so much the worse for them; if they know not how to enjoy the advantages of nature and fortune, is that the fault of either? There are nevertheless great men possessed of more wisdom, who know how to profit by the favours God has shown them, who are easily consoled for their misfortunes, and who even turn their own faults to account. M. [287]Bayle pays no heed to that: he prefers to listen to Pliny, who thinks that Augustus, one of the princes most favoured by fortune, experienced at least as much evil as good. I admit that he found great causes of trouble in his family and that remorse for having crushed the Republic may have tormented him; but I think that he was too wise to grieve over the former, and that Maecenas apparently made him understand that Rome had need of a master. Had not Augustus been converted on this point, Vergil would never have said of a lost soul:

Vendidit hic auro patriam Dominumque potentem

Imposuit, fixit leges pretio atque refixit.

Augustus would have thought that he and Caesar were alluded to in these lines, which speak of a master given to a free state. But there is every indication that he applied it just as little to his dominion, which he regarded as compatible with liberty and as a necessary remedy for public evils, as the princes of to-day apply to themselves the words used of the kings censured in M. de Cambray’s Telemachus. Each one considers himself within his rights. Tacitus, an unbiassed writer, justifies Augustus in two words, at the beginning of his Annals. But Augustus was better able than anyone to judge of his good fortune. He appears to have died content, as may be inferred from a proof he gave of contentedness with his life: for in dying he repeated to his friends a line in Greek, which has the signification of that Plaudite that was wont to be spoken at the conclusion of a well-acted play. Suetonius quotes it:

Δοτε κροτον και παντες ‛υμεις μετα χαρας κτυπησατε.

262. But even though there should have fallen to the lot of the human kind more evil than good, it is enough where God is concerned that there is incomparably more good than evil in the universe. Rabbi Maimonides (whose merit is not sufficiently recognized in the statement that he is the first of the Rabbis to have ceased talking nonsense) also gave wise judgement on this question of the predominance of good over evil in the world. Here is what he says in his Doctor Perplexorum (cap. 12, p. 3): ‘There arise often in the hearts of ill-instructed persons thoughts which persuade them there is more evil than good in the world: and one often finds in the poems and songs of the pagans that it is as it were a miracle when something good comes to pass, whereas [288]evils are usual and constant. This error has taken hold not of the common herd only, those very persons who wish to be considered wise have been beguiled thereby. A celebrated writer named Alrasi, in his Sepher Elohuth, or Theosophy, amongst other absurdities has stated that there are more evils than goods, and that upon comparison of the recreations and the pleasures man enjoys in times of tranquillity with the pains, the torments, the troubles, faults, cares, griefs and afflictions whereby he is overwhelmed our life would prove to be a great evil, and an actual penalty inflicted upon us to punish us.’ Maimonides adds that the cause of their extravagant error is their supposition that Nature was made for them only, and that they hold of no account what is separate from their person; whence they infer that when something unpleasing to them occurs all goes ill in the universe.

263. M. Bayle says that this observation of Maimonides is not to the point, because the question is whether among men evil exceeds good. But, upon consideration of the Rabbi’s words, I find that the question he formulates is general, and that he wished to refute those who decide it on one particular motive derived from the evils of the human race, as if all had been made for man; and it seems as though the author whom he refutes spoke also of good and evil in general. Maimonides is right in saying that if one took into account the littleness of man in relation to the universe one would comprehend clearly that the predominance of evil, even though it prevailed among men, need not on that account occur among the angels, nor among the heavenly bodies, nor among the elements and inanimate compounds, nor among many kinds of animals. I have shown elsewhere that in supposing that the number of the damned exceeds that of the saved (a supposition which is nevertheless not altogether certain) one might admit that there is more evil than good in respect of the human kind known to us. But I pointed out that that neither precludes the existence of incomparably more good than evil, both moral and physical, in rational creatures in general, nor prevents the city of God, which contains all creatures, from being the most perfect state. So also on consideration of the metaphysical good and evil which is in all substances, whether endowed with or devoid of intelligence, and which taken in such scope would include physical good and moral good, one must say that the universe, such as it actually is, must be the best of all systems.

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264. Moreover, M. Bayle will not have it that our transgression should have anything to do with the consideration of our sufferings. He is right when it is simply a matter of appraising these sufferings; but the case is not the same when one asks whether they should be ascribed to God, this indeed being the principal cause of M. Bayle’s difficulties when he places reason or experience in opposition to religion. I know that he is wont to say that it is of no avail to resort to our free will, since his objections tend also to prove that the misuse of free will must no less be laid to the account of God, who has permitted it and who has co-operated therein. He states it as a maxim that for one difficulty more or less one must not abandon a system. This he advances especially in favour of the methods of the strict and the dogma of the Supralapsarians. For he supposes that one can subscribe to their opinion, although he leaves all the difficulties in their entirety, because the other systems, albeit they put an end to some of the difficulties, cannot meet them all. I hold that the true system I have expounded satisfies all. Nevertheless, even were that not so, I confess that I cannot relish this maxim of M. Bayle’s, and I should prefer a system which would remove a great portion of the difficulties, to one which would meet none of them. And the consideration of the wickedness of men, which brings upon them well-nigh all their misfortunes, shows at least that they have no right to complain. No justice need trouble itself over the origin of a scoundrel’s wickedness when it is only a question of punishing him: it is quite another matter when it is a question of prevention. One knows well that disposition, upbringing, conversation, and often chance itself, have much share in that origin: is the man any the less deserving of punishment?

265. I confess that there still remains another difficulty. If God is not bound to account to the wicked for their wickedness, it seems as if he owes to himself, and to those who honour him and love him, justification for his course of action with regard to the permission of vice and crime. But God has already given that satisfaction, as far as it is needed here on earth: by granting us the light of reason he has bestowed upon us the means whereby we may meet all difficulties. I hope that I have made it plain in this discourse, and have elucidated the matter in the preceding portion of these Essays, almost as far as it can be done through general arguments. Thereafter, the permission of sin being justified, the [290]other evils that are a consequence thereof present no further difficulty. Thus also I am justified in restricting myself here to the evil of guilt to account for the evil of punishment, as Holy Scripture does, and likewise well-nigh all the Fathers of the Church and the Preachers. And, to the end that none may say that is only good per la predica, it is enough to consider that, after the solutions I have given, nothing must seem more right or more exact than this method. For God, having found already among things possible, before his actual decrees, man misusing his freedom and bringing upon himself his misfortune, yet could not avoid admitting him into existence, because the general plan required this. Wherefore it will no longer be necessary to say with M. Jurieu that one must dogmatize like St. Augustine and preach like Pelagius.

266. This method, deriving the evil of punishment from the evil of guilt, cannot be open to censure, and serves especially to account for the greatest physical evil, which is damnation. Ernst Sonner, sometime Professor of Philosophy at Altorf (a university established in the territory of the free city of Nuremberg), who was considered an excellent Aristotelian, but was finally recognized as being secretly a Socinian, had composed a little discourse entitled: Demonstration against the Eternity of Punishment. It was founded on this somewhat trite principle, that there is no proportion between an infinite punishment and a finite guilt. It was conveyed to me, printed (so it seemed) in Holland; and I replied that there was one thing to be considered which had escaped the late Herr Sonner: namely that it was enough to say that the duration of the guilt caused the duration of the penalty. Since the damned remained wicked they could not be withdrawn from their misery; and thus one need not, in order to justify the continuation of their sufferings, assume that sin has become of infinite weight through the infinite nature of the object offended, who is God. This thesis I had not explored enough to pass judgement thereon. I know that the general opinion of the Schoolmen, according to the Master of the Sentences, is that in the other life there is neither merit nor demerit; but I do not think that, taken literally, it can pass for an article of faith. Herr Fecht, a famous theologian at Rostock, well refuted that in his book on The State of the Damned. It is quite wrong, he says (§ 59); God cannot change his nature; justice is essential to him; death has closed the door of grace, but not that of justice.