MIND AS PROOF OF ITS CREATOR'S DESIGNS.

Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People by Catharine Esther Beecher, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. MIND AS PROOF OF ITS CREATOR'S DESIGNS.

CHAPTER XXII. MIND AS PROOF OF ITS CREATOR'S DESIGNS.

We have seen that the mind of man, by its very constitution, has certain implanted truths which it believes from the necessity of its nature, and that these are the foundation of all acquired knowledge, and the guide to all truth.

We have seen that, independently of a revelation, we have no other sources of knowledge except these intuitions, the experience of ourselves and others, and the deductions of reasoning.

We have examined as to the amount of knowledge to be gained from these sources in regard to the nature of mind, the laws of the system of which it is the essential part, the immortality of the soul, our prospects after death, and the character and designs of our Creator.

In discussing the last topic, it has been assumed that the grand and ultimate design of the Creator is "to produce the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil."

We have examined, at some length, the chief faculties and laws of the human mind, for the purpose of exhibiting their adaptation to this design.

We now proceed to a brief review of this portion as a summing up of the evidence sustaining the proposition that the grand end of the Creator, in forming mind, is to produce the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil.

As preliminary, however, we need to refer to one principle.

Whenever we find any contrivances all combining to secure a certain good result, which, at the same time, involves some degree of inevitable evil, and then discover that there are contrivances to diminish and avoid this evil, we properly infer that the author intended to secure as much of the good with as little of the evil as possible. For example, a traveler finds a deserted mine, and all around he discovers contrivances for obtaining gold, and, at the same time, other contrivances for getting rid of the earth mixed with it. The inevitable inference would be that the author of these contrivances designed to secure as much gold with as little earth as possible; and should any one say that he could have had more gold and less earth if he wished it, the answer would be that there is no evidence of this assertion, but direct evidence against it.

Again: should we discover a piece of machinery in which every contrivance tended to secure speed in movement, produced by the friction of wheels against a rough surface, and at the same time other contrivances were found for diminishing all friction that was useless, we should infer that the author designed to secure the greatest possible speed with the least possible friction.

In like manner, if we can show that mind is a contrivance that acts by the influence of fear of evil, and that pain seems as indispensable to the action of a free agent as friction is to motion; if we can show that there is no contrivance in mind or matter which is designed to secure suffering as its primary end; if we can, on the contrary, show that the direct end of all the organizations of mind and matter is to produce happiness; if we can show that it is only the wrong action of mind that involves most of the pain yet known, so that right action, in its place, would secure only happiness; if we can show contrivances for diminishing pain, and also contrivances for increasing happiness by means of the inevitable pain involved in the system of things, then the just conclusion will be gained that the Author of the system of mind and matter designed "to produce the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil."[3]

In the review which follows, we shall present evidence exhibiting all these particulars.

The only way in which we learn the nature of a thing is to observe its qualities and actions. This is true of mind as much as it is of matter. Experience and observation teach that the nature of mind is such that the fear of suffering is indispensable to secure a large portion of the enjoyment within reach of its faculties, and that the highest modes of enjoyment can not be secured except by sacrifice, and thus by more or less suffering.

This appears to be an inevitable combination, as much so as friction is inevitable in machinery.

We have the evidence of our own consciousness that it is fear of evil to ourselves or to others that is the strongest motive power to the mind. If we should find that no pain resulted from burning up our own bodies, or from drowning, or from any other cause; if every one perceived that no care, trouble, or pain resulted from losing all kinds of enjoyment, the effort to seek it would be greatly diminished.

If we could desire good enough to exert ourselves to seek it, and yet should feel no discomfort in failing; if we could lose every thing, and feel no sense of pain or care, the stimulus to action which experience has shown to be most powerful and beneficent would be lost.

We find that abundance of ease and prosperity enervates mental power, and that mind increases in all that is grand and noble, and also in the most elevating happiness, by means of danger, care, and pain. We may properly infer, then, that evil is a necessary part of the experience of a perfectly-acting mind.

So strong is the conviction that painful penalties are indispensable, that the kindest parents and the most benevolent rulers are the most sure to increase rather than diminish those that are already involved in the existing nature of things.

Again: without a revelation we have no knowledge of any kind of mind but by inference from our experience in this state of being. All we know of the Eternal First Cause is by a process of reasoning, inferring that his nature must be like the only minds of which we have any knowledge. We assume, then, that he is a free agent, regulated by desire for happiness and fear of evil.

We thus come to the conclusion that this organization of mind is a part of the fixed and eternal nature of things, and does not result from the will of the Creator. His own is the eternal pattern of an all-perfect mind, and our own are formed on this perfect model, with susceptibilities to pain as an indispensable motive power in gaining happiness.

We will now recapitulate some of the particulars in the laws and constitution of mind which tend to establish the position that its Creator's grand design is "to produce the greatest possible happiness with the least possible evil."

Intellectual Powers.

First, then, in reference to the earliest exercise of mind in sensation. The eye might have been so made that light would inflict pain, and the ear so that sound would cause only discomfort. And so of all the other senses.

But the condition of a well-formed, healthy infant is a most striking illustration of the adaptation of the senses to receive enjoyment. Who could gaze on the countenance of such a little one, as its various senses are called into exercise, without such a conviction? The delight manifested as the light attracts the eye, or as pleasant sounds charm the ear, or as the limpid nourishment gratifies its taste, or as gentle motion and soft fondlings soothe the nerves of touch, all testify to the benevolent design of its Maker.

Next come the pleasures of perception as the infant gradually observes the qualities of the various objects around, and slowly learns to distinguish its mother and its playthings from the confused mass of forms and colors. Then comes the gentle curiosity as it watches the movement of its own limbs, and finally discovers that its own volitions move its tiny fingers, while the grand idea that it is itself a cause is gradually introduced.

Next come the varied intellectual pleasures as the several powers are exercised in connection with the animate and material world around, in acquiring the meaning of words, and in imitating the sounds and use of language. The adult, in toiling over the dry lexicon, little realizes the pleasure with which the little one is daily acquiring the philosophy, grammar, and vocabulary of its mother tongue.

A child who can not understand a single complete sentence, or speak an intelligible phrase, will sit and listen with long-continued delight to the simple enunciation of words, each one of which presents a picture to his mind of a dog, a cat, a cow, a horse, a whip, a ride, and many other objects and scenes that have given pleasure in the past; while the single words, without any sentences, bring back, not only vivid conceptions of these objects, but a part of the enjoyment with which they have been connected.

Then, as years pass by, the intellect more and more administers pleasure, while the reasoning powers are developed, the taste cultivated, the imagination exercised, the judgment employed, and the memory stored with treasures for future enjoyment.

In the proper and temperate use of the intellectual powers, there is a constant succession of placid satisfaction, or of agreeable and often of delightful emotions, while no one of these faculties is productive of pain except in violating the laws of the mental constitution.

The Susceptibilities.

In regard to the second general class of mental powers—the susceptibilities—the first particular to be noticed is the ceaseless and all-pervading desire to gain happiness and escape pain. This is the mainspring of all voluntary activity; for no act of volition will take place till some good is presented to gain, or some evil to shun. At the same time, as has been shown, the desire to escape evil is more potent and effective than the desire for good. Thousands of minds that rest in passive listlessness, when there is nothing to stimulate but hope of enjoyment, will exert every physical and mental power to escape impending evil. The seasons of long-continued prosperity in nations always tend to a deterioration of intellect and manhood. It is in seasons of danger alone that fear wakes up the highest energies, and draws forth the heroes of the race.

Mind, then, is an existence having the power of that self-originating action of choice which constitutes free agency, while this power can only be exercised when desires are excited to gain happiness or to escape pain. This surely is the highest possible evidence that its Author intended mind should thus act.

But a mind may act to secure happiness and avoid pain to itself, and yet may gain only very low grades of enjoyment, while much higher are within reach of its faculties. So, also, it may act to gain happiness for itself as the chief end in such ways as to prevent or destroy the happiness of others around.

In reference to this, we find those susceptibilities which raise man to the dignity of a moral being.

In the first place, there is that impression of the great design of the Creator existing in every mind, either as a result of constitution or of training, or of both united, which results in a feeling that whatever lessens or destroys happiness is unfit and contrary to the system of things.

Next there is the power to balance pleasure and pain, and estimate the compound result, both in reference to self and to the commonwealth. With this is combined the feeling that whatever secures the most good with the least evil is right and fit, and that the opposite is wrong and unfitted to the nature of things.

Next comes the sense of justice, which results in an impulse to discover the cause of good and evil, and when this cause is found to be a voluntary agent, a consequent impulse to make returns of good for good, and of evil for evil, and also to proportion retributive rewards or penalties to the amount of good or evil done.

With this, also, is combined the feeling that those retributions should be applied only where there was voluntary power to have done otherwise. When it is seen that there was no such power, the impulse to reward or punish is repressed.

Such is the deep conviction that such retributions are indispensable, that where natural pains and penalties do not avail, others are demanded, both in the family and in the commonwealth.

Lastly, we find the susceptibility of conscience, which, by the very framework of the mind itself, apportions the retributive pangs of remorse for wrong doing, and the pleasure of self-approval for well doing. These, too, are retributions never to be escaped, and the most exquisite, both in elevated happiness and exquisite pain. The mind carries about in itself its own certain and gracious remunerator—its own inexorable prosecutor, judge, and executioner.

This same design of the Creator may be most delightfully traced in what may be called the economy of happiness and pain.

One particular of this is set forth at large in the chapter on the emotions of taste. Here we find the mind formed not only to secure multitudinous enjoyments through the nerves of sensation, but that, by the principle of association, there is a perpetual reproduction of these emotions in connection with the colors, forms, sounds, and motions with which they were originally associated. Thus there are perpetually returning emotions of pleasure so recondite, so refined, so almost infinite in variety and extent, and yet how little noticed or understood!

Another indication of the same kind is the peculiarity pointed out on former pages, where it is shown that securing certain enjoyments which tend to promote the general happiness increases both desire and capacity for enjoyment, while those that terminate in the individual diminish by possession. Thus the enjoyment of power, which must, from its nature, be confined to a few, diminishes by possession. Thus, too, the pleasures of sense pall by indulgence. But the enjoyment resulting from the exercise and reciprocation of love, and that resulting from benevolent actions, and that which is included in a course of perfect obedience to all the rules of rectitude, increases the capacity for enjoyment.

Another illustration of the same principle is exhibited in the chapter on Habit, where it is seen that the power of pleasurable emotions increases by repetition, while painful emotions decrease when the good to be secured by their agency is attained. Thus fear seems to protect from danger till caution and habit render it needless, and then it decreases. And so of other painful emotions.

It is interesting to trace the same design in the constitution of minds in regard to each other. We find that the purest and highest kind of happiness is dependent on the mutual relations of minds. Thus the enjoyment resulting from the discovery of intellectual and moral traits in other minds—that resulting from giving and receiving affection—that gained by sympathy, and by being the cause of happiness to others, and that resulting from conscious rectitude, all are dependent on the existence of other beings.

Now we find that minds are relatively so constituted that what one desires, it is a source of happiness in another to bestow. Thus one can be pleased by the discovery of certain traits in other minds, while, in return, the exhibition of these traits, and the consciousness that they are appreciated, is an equal source of enjoyment. One mind seeks the love of others, while these, in return, are desiring objects of affection, and rejoice to confer the gift that is sought. The desire of knowledge or the gratification of curiosity is another source of pleasure, while satisfying this desire is a cause of enjoyment to those around. How readily do mankind seize upon every opportunity to convey interesting news to other minds!

Again: we find that, both in sorrow and in joy, the mind seeks for the sympathy of others, while this grateful and soothing boon it is delightful to bestow. So, also, the consciousness of being the cause of good to another sends joy to the heart, while the recipient is filled with the pleasing glow of gratitude in receiving the benefit. The consciousness of virtue in acting for the general good, instead of for contracted, selfish purposes, is another source of happiness, while those who witness its delightful results rejoice to behold and acknowledge it. What bursts of rapturous applause have followed the exhibition of virtuous self-sacrifice for the good of others from bosoms who rejoiced in this display, and who could owe this pleasure to no other cause than the natural constitution of mind, which is formed to be made happy both in beholding and in exercising virtue.

This same beneficial economy is manifested in a close analysis of all that is included in the affections of love and gratitude.

It has been shown that, in the commencement of existence, the young mind first learns the sources of good and evil to self, and its sole motives are desire for its own enjoyment.

Soon, however, it begins to experience the happiness resulting from the relations of minds to each other, and then is developed the superior power of love, and its importance as a regulating principle.

In the analysis of this affection, it is seen to consist, first, in the pleasurable emotions which arise in view of those traits of character in another mind pointed out on previous pages. When these qualities are discovered, the first result is emotions of pleasure in the contemplation. Immediately there follows a desire of good to the cause of this pleasure. Next follows the desire of reciprocated affection—that is, a desire is awakened to become the cause of the same pleasure to another; for the desire of being loved is the desire to be the cause of pleasurable emotions in another mind, in view of our own good qualities. When we secure this desired appreciation, then follows an increased desire of good to the one who bestows it.

Thus the affection of love is a combination of the action and reaction of pleasurable emotions, all tending to awaken the desire of good to another. This passion may become so intensified that it will become more delightful to secure enjoyments to another than to procure them for self.

Gratitude is the emotion of pleasure toward the author of voluntary good to self, attended by a desire of good to the benefactor. This principle can be added to augment the power of love.

There is a foundation for a very important distinction in the analysis of the principle of love. In what is thus far presented, we find that the desire of good to another results solely from the fact that certain mental qualities are causes of pleasure to self. Of course, this desire ceases when those qualities cease to exist or cease to be appreciated. This kind of love is the natural result of the constitution of minds in their relations to each other, making it easy and pleasant to live for the good of another in return for the pleasure received from their agreeable qualities and manifestations.

But the highest kind of love consists in the desire of good to another without reference to any good received in return. It is good willing. It consists in an abiding feeling of desire for the happiness of another mind.

This principle exists as a natural impulse more or less powerful in differently constituted minds. It is the cause of that pleasure which is felt in the consciousness of being the cause of good to another. But this natural impulse can be so developed and increased by voluntary culture as to become the strongest impulse of the mind, and thus the source of the highest and most satisfying enjoyments. In many minds this becomes so strongly developed that securing happiness to others is sought with far more earnestness and pleasure than any modes of enjoyment that terminate solely in self. This analysis lays the foundation for the distinction expressed by the terms the love of complacency and the love of benevolence. The first is the involuntary result of good conferred on self; the last is a voluntary act. It is good willing toward others without reference to self.

The first can only exist where certain qualities are preserved and appreciated in another mind. The second can result from voluntary effort, and become the subject of law and penalties.

We can never be justly required to love another mind with the love of complacency except when qualities are perceived that, by the constitution of mind, necessarily call forth such regard. But the love of benevolence can be justly demanded from every mind toward every being capable of happiness.

Here it is important to discriminate more exactly in regard to the principle of benevolence and the principle of rectitude.

It is seen that the benevolence which is the subject of rewards and penalties as a voluntary act consists in good willing—that is, in choosing the happiness of other minds as the object of interest and pursuit.

But the principle of rectitude is more comprehensive in its nature. It relates to obedience to all the laws of the system of the universe—those relating to ourselves as much as those relating to others. It is true that, as obedience to these laws includes the greatest possible amount of good with the least possible evil, both to the individual and the commonwealth, the tendency of the two principles is to the same result. But it may be the case that benevolence acts contrary to the true rules of rectitude, and thus may mar rather than promote happiness. A mind must not only choose to promote the greatest possible happiness, but must choose the right way of doing it.

A very important particular to be considered is, that, while in the physical and mental constitution there is not a single arrangement the direct object of which is to produce suffering, the susceptibilities to pain seem designed to protect and preserve, while the greater the need the more strong is this protection. For example, in regard to physical organization, fire is an element that is indispensable to the life, comfort, and activity of man, and it must be accessible at all times and places. But all its service arises from its power to dissolve and destroy the body itself, as well as all things around it. Therefore the pain connected with contact with fire is more acute than almost any other. Thus even the youngest child is taught that care and caution needful to protect its body from injury or destruction.

Another fact in regard to the susceptibilities of pain is their frequent co-existence with the highest degrees of enjoyment. The experiences of this life often present cases where the most elevated and ecstatic happiness is combined with the keenest suffering, while such is the nature of the case that the suffering is the chief cause of the happiness thus secured. The highest illustration of this is in the suffering of saints and martyrs, when they "rejoice to be counted worthy to suffer shame," or when, amid torturing flames, they sing songs of transport and praise.

Even in common life it is constantly found that a certain relative amount of happiness is felt to be more than a recompense for a given amount of pain. This relative amount may be such that the evil involved, though great, may count as nothing. Where there is a passionate attachment, for example, the lover exults in the labor and suffering that will joyfully be received as a proof of affection and secure the compensating return.

It is a very common fact that the existence of painful emotions is sought, not for themselves, but as ministers to a kind of mental excitement which is desired. This is the foundation of the pleasure which is felt in tragic representations, and in poetry and novels that present scenes of distress. The little child will again and again ask for the tale of the Babes in the Wood, though each rehearsal brings forth tears; and the mature matron or sage will spend hours over tales that harrow the feelings or call forth sighs. This also is the foundation of that kind of music called the minor key, in which certain sounds bring emotions of sadness or sorrow.

Another striking fact in regard to the desire for pain is the emotions that are felt by the most noble and benevolent minds at the sight of cruelty and injustice. At such scenes, the desire for inflicting pain on the guilty offender amounts to a passion which nothing can allay but retributive justice. And the more benevolent the mind, the stronger this desire for retributive evil to another.

Thus it appears that the mind is so made as to desire pain both for itself and for others; not in itself considered, but as the indispensable means to gain some consequent enjoyment.

The highest kinds of happiness result from painful emergencies. The transports of love, gratitude, and delight, when some benefactor rescues suffering thousands from danger and evil, could exist in no other way. All the long train of virtues included in patient toil for the good of others, in heroic daring, in brave adventure, in fortitude, in patience, in resignation, in heavenly meekness, in noble magnanimity, in sublime self-sacrifice, all involve the idea of trial, danger, and suffering. It is only the highest and noblest class of minds that can fully understand that the most blissful of all enjoyments are those which are bought with pain.

But the most cheering feature in the constitution of mind is all that is included in the principle of habit. We see in the commencement of existence that every action of mind and body is imperfect, and more or less difficult, while each effort to secure right action increases the facility of so doing. We see that, owing to this principle, every act of obedience to law makes such a course easier. The intellect, the susceptibilities, the will, all come under this benign influence. Habit may so diminish the difficulty of self-denial for our own good that the pain entirely ceases; and self-sacrifice for the good of others may so develop benevolence and generate a habit that it will become pleasure without pain. There are those, even in this world, who have so attained this capacity of living in the life of those around them that the happiness of others becomes their own, and then there is even less pain in self-denial for the good of others than for that of self. When this habit of mind is attained, the happiness of the commonwealth becomes the portion of the individual.

About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books.

This book is part of the public domain. Catharine Esther Beecher (2017). Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/55531/pg55531-images.html

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org, located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.