GOOD AND EVIL.

Origin of good and evil. — Instinct and intelligence.

— Destruction of living beings by one another.

ORIGIN OF GOOD AND EVIL.

— God being the principle of all things and being all wisdom, all goodness, all justice, everything that proceeds from Him must partake of His attributes, since that which is infinitely wise, just, and good can produce nothing that is unintelligent, evil, and unjust.

The evil we observe cannot have its origin in Him.

— If evil were among the attributions of a special being, whether he be called Ahriman or Satan, he would either be equal to God and, consequently, as powerful as He, and from all eternity like Him, or he would be inferior to Him.

In the first case, there would be two rival powers, incessantly at strife, each seeking to undo what the other might do, mutually thwarting one another—a hypothesis irreconcilable with the unity of design revealed in the structure of the Universe.

In the second case, being inferior to God, that being would be subordinate to Him;

not being able to exist from all eternity like God without being equal to Him, he would have had a beginning; 5 if he were created, he could have been created only by God, who, then, would have created the Spirit of evil, which would imply a denial of infinite goodness.

(See Heaven and Hell, chapter X: The demons.)

— Nevertheless, evil exists and has a cause.

The evils of every kind, physical or moral, that afflict Humanity form two categories that it is important to distinguish: that of the evils man can avoid and that of those that are independent of his will.

Among the former, the natural scourges must be included.

Man, whose faculties are restricted, cannot penetrate nor encompass the whole of the Creator's designs; he appreciates things from the point of view of his own personality, of the factitious and conventional interests he has created for himself and which are not comprised within the order of Nature; this is why what he would consider just and admirable, did he know its cause, its object, its definitive result, often appears to him evil and unjust.

In investigating the reason for being and the usefulness of each thing, he will verify that everything bears the seal of infinite wisdom and will bow before that wisdom, even with regard to what is not comprehensible to him.

— Man received as his portion an intelligence with the aid of which it is possible for him to ward off, or at least to attenuate, the effects of all natural scourges; 2 the more knowledge he acquires and the more he advances in civilization, the less disastrous the scourges become; 3 with a wise and provident organization, he will even come to neutralize their consequences, when they cannot be entirely avoided.

Thus, even with reference to the scourges that have a certain usefulness for the general order of Nature and for the future, but which, in the present, cause harm, God has granted man the means to paralyze their effects.

Thus it is that he drains unhealthy regions, immunizes against pestilential miasmas, fertilizes arid lands and seeks to preserve them from floods; he builds more salubrious dwellings, more solid so as to resist the winds so necessary to the purification of the atmosphere, and shelters himself from inclement weather; 6 thus it is, finally, that, little by little, necessity has made him create the sciences, by means of which he improves the conditions of habitability of the globe and increases his own well-being.

— Since man must progress, the evils to which he is exposed are a stimulant for the exercise of his intelligence, of all his physical and moral faculties, inciting him to seek the means to avoid them.

If he had nothing to fear, no necessity would induce him to seek the better; his spirit would grow torpid in inactivity; he would invent nothing, nor discover anything.

Pain is the goad that drives him forward, on the path of progress.

— But the most numerous evils are those man creates through his vices, those that proceed from his pride, his egoism, his ambition, his cupidity, his excesses in everything: therein is the cause of wars and of the calamities they entail, of dissensions, of injustices, of the oppression of the weak by the strong, and, in the end, of the greater part of illnesses.

God promulgated laws full of wisdom, having for their sole object the good; in himself man finds all that is necessary for fulfilling them;

conscience traces out his route, the divine law is engraved in his heart,

and, moreover, God constantly reminds him of it through his messiahs and prophets, through all the incarnate Spirits who bring the mission of enlightening, moralizing, and improving him, and, in these latter times, through the multitude of disincarnate Spirits who manifest themselves everywhere.

If man conformed rigorously to the divine laws, there is no doubt that he would spare himself the most acute evils and would live happily on Earth.

If he does not act thus, it is by virtue of his free will: he then suffers the consequences of his conduct. (The Gospel According to Spiritism, chapter V, nos. 4, 5, 6 and following.)

— Nevertheless, God, all goodness, placed the remedy beside the evil, that is, He made the remedy come forth from the evil itself.

A moment arrives when the excess of moral evil becomes intolerable and imposes upon man the necessity of changing his life; 3 instructed by experience, he feels compelled to seek the remedy in good, always through the effect of his free will; 4 when he takes a better path, it is by his own will and because he has recognized the drawbacks of the other.

Necessity, then, constrains him to improve himself morally, in order to be happier, in the same way that it constrained him to improve the material conditions of his existence. (No. 5)

— It may be said that evil is the absence of good, as cold is the absence of heat.

Just as cold is not a special fluid, so too evil is not a distinct attribute; one is the negative of the other.

Where good does not exist, evil necessarily exists; 4 not to practice evil is already a principle of good.

God wills only the good; from man alone proceeds evil.

If in Creation there were a being appointed to evil, no one could avoid it; but, man having the cause of evil within HIMSELF, having at the same time free will and the divine laws for guide, he will avoid it whenever he wishes.

Let us take as a term of comparison a common fact. A landowner knows that at the confines of his lands there is a dangerous place, where whoever ventured there might perish or be injured. What does he do, in order to prevent accidents? He has a notice placed nearby, forbidding the passerby to go farther, by reason of the danger.

There is the Law, which is wise and provident. If, in spite of everything, an imprudent person disregards the notice, goes beyond the point where it stands, and fares badly, of whom can he complain but himself?

The same occurs with evil: man would avoid it if he fulfilled the divine laws.

For example: God set a limit to the satisfaction of needs: of that limit satiety warns man; if he oversteps it, he does so voluntarily. The diseases, the infirmities, the death that may result therefrom proceed from his improvidence, not from God.

— Evil deriving from man's imperfections, and man having been created by God, it will be said that God has not failed to create, if not evil, at least the cause of evil; had He created man perfect, evil would not exist.

Had he been created perfect, man would inevitably incline toward good; now, by virtue of his free will, he does not incline inevitably either toward good or toward evil.

God willed that he be subject to the law of progress and that progress result from his labor, so that the fruit thereof might belong to him, in the same way that the responsibility for the evil he commits by his own will falls upon him.

The question, then, consists in knowing what, in man, is the origin of his propensity toward evil. n

— In studying all the passions and even all the vices, one sees that the roots of both are found in the instinct of self-preservation, an instinct that is found in all its vigor in animals and in primitive beings nearest to animality, in whom it exclusively dominates, without the counterweight of the moral sense, since the being has not yet been born to the intellectual life.

Instinct weakens as intelligence develops, because the latter dominates matter.

The Spirit has for its destiny the spiritual life, but, in the first phases of its corporeal existence, it has only material exigencies to satisfy, and, for this, the exercise of the passions constitutes a necessity for the purpose of the preservation of the species and of individuals, materially speaking.

But, once out of that period, other needs present themselves to it, at first semi-moral and semi-material, then exclusively moral.

It is then that the Spirit exercises dominion over matter, shakes off its yoke, advances along the providential path traced out for it, and draws nearer to its final destiny.

If, on the contrary, it lets itself be dominated by matter, it falls behind and identifies itself with the brute.

In that situation, what was formerly a good, because it was a necessity of its nature, is transformed into an evil, not only because it no longer constitutes a necessity, but because it becomes prejudicial to the spiritualization of the being.

Much that is a quality in the child becomes a defect in the adult.

Evil is, then, relative, and responsibility is proportionate to the degree of advancement.

All the passions, therefore, have a providential usefulness, since, were it not so, God would have made useless and even harmful things.

It is in abuse that evil resides, and man abuses by virtue of his free will.

Later, enlightened by his own interest, he freely chooses between good and evil.

INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE.

— What is the difference between instinct and intelligence? Where does the one end and the other begin? Is instinct a rudimentary intelligence, or is it a distinct faculty, an attribute exclusive to matter?

Instinct is the hidden force that solicits organic beings to spontaneous and involuntary acts, with a view to their preservation.

In instinctive acts there is no reflection, nor combination, nor premeditation.

It is thus that the plant seeks the air, turns toward the light, directs its roots toward water and toward nourishing earth; that the flower alternately opens and closes, according as is necessary to it; that climbing plants coil around that which serves them as support, or cling to it with their tendrils.

It is by instinct that animals are warned of what suits or harms them; that they seek, according to the season, the propitious climates; that they build, without prior teaching, with more or less art, according to the species, soft beds and shelters for their progeny, snares to catch the prey on which they feed; that they wield with dexterity the offensive and defensive weapons with which they are provided; that the sexes draw near one another; that the mother broods over her young and that these seek the maternal breast.

In man, only at the beginning of life does instinct dominate exclusively; it is by instinct that the child makes its first movements, that it takes food, that it cries to express its needs, that it imitates the sound of the voice, that it attempts to speak and to walk.

In the adult himself, certain acts are instinctive, such as the spontaneous movements to avoid a risk, to flee a danger, to maintain the equilibrium of the body; such, again, the blinking of the eyelids to moderate the brilliance of the light, the mechanical opening of the mouth to breathe, etc.

— Intelligence reveals itself through voluntary acts, reflected upon, premeditated, combined, in accordance with the opportuneness of circumstances.

It is incontestably an attribute exclusive to the soul.

Every mechanical act is instinctive; the act that denotes reflection, combination, deliberation is intelligent. The one is free, the other is not.

Instinct is a sure guide, which never errs; intelligence, by the mere fact of being free, is at times subject to error.

The instinctive act lacks the character of the intelligent act; it reveals, nevertheless, an intelligent cause, essentially apt to foresee.

If we admit that instinct proceeds from matter, we shall have to admit that matter is intelligent, even far more intelligent and provident than the soul, since instinct does not err, whereas intelligence is mistaken.

If we consider instinct a rudimentary intelligence, how is it to be explained that, in certain cases, it is superior to the intelligence that reasons? How to explain that it makes possible the execution of acts that the latter cannot perform?

If it is an attribute of a spiritual principle of a special nature, what comes to be that principle? Since instinct is extinguished, will it be that this principle is destroyed?

If animals are endowed only with instinct, their destiny has no solution and their sufferings no compensation, which would be in accord neither with the justice nor with the goodness of God. (Chap. II, no. 19)

— According to another system, instinct and intelligence would proceed from a single principle; having reached a certain degree of development, this principle, which at first had only the qualities of instinct, would undergo a transformation that would give it those of free intelligence.

If it were so, in the intelligent man who loses his reason and comes to be guided exclusively by instinct, intelligence would return to its primitive state and, when the man recovered his reason, instinct would become intelligence, and thus alternately, with each fit, which is not admissible.

Moreover, it is frequent for instinct and intelligence to reveal themselves simultaneously in the same act.

In walking, for example, the movement of the legs is instinctive; man mechanically places one foot in front of the other, without thinking about it; when, however, he wishes to quicken or slacken his pace, to lift his foot or to avoid a stumbling-block, there is calculation, combination; he acts with deliberate purpose.

The involuntary impulsion of the movement is the instinctive act; the calculated direction of the movement is the intelligent act.

The carnivorous animal is impelled by instinct to feed on flesh, but the precautions it takes and which vary according to circumstances, in order to seize the prey, its foresight of eventualities, are acts of intelligence.

— Another hypothesis which, in short, conjoins perfectly with the idea of unity of principle, springs from the essentially provident character of instinct and accords with what Spiritism teaches, regarding the relations of the spiritual world with the corporeal world.

It is now known that many disincarnate Spirits have for their mission to watch over the incarnate, of whom they constitute themselves the protectors and guides; that they envelop them in their fluidic effluvia; that man often acts in an unconscious manner, under the action of these effluvia.

It is known, moreover, that instinct, which of itself produces unconscious acts, predominates in children and, in general, in beings whose reason is weak.

Now, according to this hypothesis, instinct would be an attribute neither of the soul nor of matter; it would not belong properly to the living being, it would be the effect of the direct action of the invisible protectors who would supply for the imperfection of the intelligence, provoking the unconscious acts necessary to the preservation of the being.

It would be like the leading-strings with which children who do not yet know how to walk are supported. Then, in the same way that the leading-strings are gradually given up, as the child balances itself alone, the protecting Spirits leave their protégés to themselves, as these become apt to guide themselves by their own intelligence.

Thus, instinct, far from being the product of a rudimentary and incomplete intelligence, would be that of a foreign intelligence, in the plenitude of its strength, a protecting intelligence, supplementary to the insufficiency, either of a younger intelligence, which the former would compel to do, unconsciously, for its own good, what it was still incapable of doing by itself, or of a mature intelligence, but momentarily hindered in the use of its faculties, as occurs with man in infancy and in cases of idiocy and of mental afflictions.

It is said proverbially that there is a god for children, for madmen, and for drunkards; this saying is more truthful than is supposed. That god is none other than the protecting Spirit, who watches over the being incapable of protecting itself by making use of its own reason.

— In this order of ideas, one can go still farther. However rational it may be, this theory does not resolve all the difficulties of the question.

If we observe the effects of instinct, we shall note, in the first place, a unity of views and of ensemble, a sureness of results, which cease as soon as intelligence replaces it; moreover, we shall recognize a profound wisdom in the so perfect and so constant appropriation of the instinctive faculties to the needs of each species.

Such unity of views could not exist without unity of thought, and this is incompatible with the diversity of individual aptitudes; it alone could produce that ensemble so harmonious which is realized from the origin of time and in all climates, with a regularity, a mathematical precision, whose absence is never noted.

The uniformity in what results from the instinctive faculties is a characteristic fact, which necessarily implies unity of cause; if the cause were inherent in each individuality, there would be as many varieties of instincts as there were individuals, from the plant to man.

A general, uniform, and constant effect must have a general, uniform, and constant cause; an effect that attests wisdom and foresight must have a wise and provident cause.

Now, a cause of this nature, being necessarily intelligent, cannot be exclusively material.

The qualities necessary to the production of such a result not being met with in creatures, incarnate or disincarnate, we have to ascend higher, that is, to the Creator Himself.

If we refer back to the explanation given concerning the manner in which providential action can be conceived (Chap. II, no. 24); if we figure all beings penetrated by the divine fluid, sovereignly intelligent, we shall comprehend the provident wisdom and the unity of views that preside over all the instinctive movements that are effected for the good of each individual.

The more active this solicitude is, the fewer resources the individual has in himself and in his intelligence; this is why it shows itself greater and more absolute in animals and in inferior beings than in man.

According to this theory, it is understood that instinct is a sure guide.

Maternal instinct, the noblest of all, which materialism lowers to the level of the attractive forces of matter, is heightened and ennobled.

By reason of its consequences, it ought not to be left to the capricious eventualities of intelligence and free will.

Through the medium of the mother, God Himself watches over His creatures that are born.

— This theory in no way annuls the role of the protecting Spirits, whose concurrence is a fact observed and proved by experience; but it must be noted that the action of these Spirits is essentially individual; that it is modified according to the qualities proper to the protector and the protégé and that nowhere does it present the uniformity and the generality of instinct.

God, in His wisdom, Himself leads the blind, but confides to free intelligences the care of guiding the clear-sighted, in order to leave to each one the responsibility for his acts.

The mission of the protecting Spirits constitutes a duty that they accept voluntarily and is for them a means of advancing, the advancement depending on the manner in which they discharge it.

— All these ways of considering instinct are necessarily hypothetical, and none presents a sure character of authenticity, so as to be held as a definitive solution.

The question, no doubt, will be resolved one day, when the elements of observation that are still lacking shall have been gathered; until then, we have to limit ourselves to submitting the diverse opinions to the crucible of reason and logic and to await that the light be made; 3 the solution that comes nearest to the truth will surely be the one that best accords with the attributes of God, that is, with supreme goodness and supreme justice. (Chap. II, no. 19.)

— Instinct being the guide and the passions the springs of the soul in the initial period of its development, at times the one and the others are confounded in their effects.

There are, however, between these two principles, differences that it is very important to consider.

Instinct is a sure guide, always good; it may, after a certain time, become useless, but never prejudicial; it weakens through the predominance of intelligence.

The passions, in the first ages of the soul, have in common with instinct that creatures are solicited by a force equally unconscious.

The passions are born chiefly of the needs of the body and depend, more than instinct, on the organism.

What, above all, distinguishes them from instinct is that they are individual and do not produce, like the latter, general and uniform effects; they vary, on the contrary, in intensity and in nature, according to the individuals.

They are useful, as a stimulant, until the eclosion of the moral sense, which makes a rational being be born from a passive one; at that moment, they become not only useless, but harmful to the progress of the Spirit, whose dematerialization they retard; they abate with the development of reason.

— The man who acted constantly only by instinct could be very good, but he would keep his intelligence asleep; he would be like a child who never left the leading-strings and did not know how to make use of his limbs.

He who does not master his passions may be very intelligent, but, at the same time, very wicked.

Instinct annihilates itself by itself; the passions can be tamed only by the effort of the will.

DESTRUCTION OF LIVING BEINGS BY ONE ANOTHER.

— The reciprocal destruction of living beings is, among the laws of Nature, one of those which, at first sight, seem least to be reconciled with the goodness of God.

It is asked why He created in them the necessity of mutually destroying one another, in order to feed one at the expense of the other.

For whoever sees only matter and restricts his vision to the present life, this must indeed seem an imperfection in the divine work.

The fact is that, in general, men appreciate the perfection of God from the human point of view; measuring His wisdom by the judgment they form of it, they think that God could do nothing better than they themselves would do.

The short vision at their disposal not allowing them to appreciate the whole, they do not comprehend that a real good can derive from an apparent evil.

Only the knowledge of the spiritual principle, considered in its true essence, and that of the great law of unity, which constitutes the harmony of Creation, can give man the key to this mystery and show him providential wisdom and harmony, precisely where he sees only an anomaly and a contradiction.

— The true life, both of the animal and of man, is not in the corporeal envelope, just as it is not in the garment. It is in the intelligent principle that pre-exists and survives the body.

This principle needs the body, in order to develop through the labor it has to accomplish upon brute matter; 3 the body is consumed in that labor, but the Spirit is not worn out; on the contrary, it comes forth from it ever stronger, more lucid, and more apt.

What does it matter, then, that the Spirit changes its envelope more or less frequently?! It does not on that account cease to be Spirit. It is precisely as if a man changed his garments a hundred times in the year. He would not on that account cease to be a man.

By means of the incessant spectacle of destruction, God teaches men the slight account they should make of the material envelope and raises in them the idea of the spiritual life, making them desire it as a compensation.

It will be objected: could not God arrive at the same result by other means, without constraining living beings to destroy one another?

Since in His work all is wisdom, we must suppose that this will not exist more at one point than at others; if we do not comprehend it thus, we must attribute it to our lack of advancement.

Nevertheless, we may attempt the investigation of the reason for what seems to us defective, taking for compass this principle: God must be infinitely just and wise. Let us seek, therefore, in everything, His justice and His wisdom, and let us bow before that which surpasses our understanding.

— A first usefulness that presents itself from such destruction, a usefulness, no doubt, purely physical, is this: organic bodies are preserved only with the aid of organic matters, matters which alone contain the nutritive elements necessary to their transformation.

As instruments of action for the intelligent principle, the bodies needing to be constantly renewed, Providence makes them serve their mutual sustenance; this is why beings nourish themselves one upon another; but, then, it is the body that nourishes itself upon the body, without the Spirit being annihilated or altered; it is merely stripped of its envelope. n

— There are also moral considerations of an elevated order.

Struggle is necessary for the development of the Spirit; it is in struggle that it exercises its faculties.

That which attacks in search of food and that which defends itself to preserve life make use of skill and intelligence, increasing, in consequence, their intellectual forces.

One of the two succumbs; but, in reality, what did the stronger or the more dexterous take from the weaker? The vesture of flesh, nothing more; later, the Spirit, which did not die, will take another.

— In the inferior beings of creation, in those to whom the moral sense is still lacking, in whom intelligence has not yet replaced instinct, struggle can have no motive other than the satisfaction of a material need; 2 now, one of the most imperious of these needs is that of feeding; they, then, struggle solely to live, that is, to make or to defend a prey, since no more elevated motive could stimulate them.

It is in this first period that the soul elaborates itself and rehearses for life.

In man, there is a period of transition in which he is scarcely distinguished from the brute; 5 in the first ages, animal instinct dominates and struggle still has for its motive the satisfaction of material needs; 6 later, animal instinct and moral sentiment counterbalance one another; man then struggles, no longer to feed himself, but to satisfy his ambition, his pride, the need he experiences to dominate; 7 for this, he still needs to destroy.

However, as the moral sense preponderates, sensibility develops, the need to destroy diminishes, and even ends by disappearing, by becoming odious; then, man has a horror of blood.

Nevertheless, struggle is always necessary to the development of the Spirit, for, even reaching that point which seems culminating, it is still far from being perfect; 10 only at the cost of much activity does it acquire knowledge, experience, and strip itself of the last vestiges of animality; 11 but, on that occasion, struggle, from the bloody and brutal thing it was, becomes purely intellectual; 12 man struggles against difficulties, no longer against his fellow men. n [1]

The error lies in claiming that the soul came forth perfect from the hands of the Creator; when He, on the contrary, willed that perfection should result from the gradual purification of the Spirit and be its own work. God saw fit that the soul, endowed with free will, should be able to choose between good and evil and reach its ultimate ends in a militant manner, resisting evil. Had He created the soul as perfect as Himself and, on its coming forth from His hands, associated it with His eternal beatitude, God would have made it, not in His image, but similar to Himself. (Bonnamy: The Reason of Spiritism, chapter VI.) [La Raison du Spiritisme - Google Books.]

[2] See: Spiritist Review, August 1864: Destruction of the aborigines of Mexico.

[3] Without prejudging the consequences that may be drawn from this principle, we have merely wished to demonstrate, by means of this explanation, that the destruction of some living beings by others in no way invalidates divine wisdom and that, in the laws of Nature, everything is linked together. This linkage necessarily breaks, as soon as one abstracts from the spiritual principle. Many questions remain insoluble, because only matter is taken into account. Materialist doctrines carry within themselves the principle of their own destruction. They have against them not only the antagonism in which they find themselves with the aspirations of the universality of men and their moral consequences, which will cause them to be repelled as dissolvents of society, but also the necessity that man experiences of acquainting himself with all that results from progress. Intellectual development leads man to the investigation of causes. Now, however little he reflects, he will not be slow to recognize the impotence of materialism to explain everything. How is it possible that doctrines which satisfy neither the heart, nor reason, nor intelligence, which leave the most vital questions problematic, should come to prevail? The progress of ideas will kill materialism, as it killed fanaticism.