518 DUTIES OF A CREATOR. 



ing it are good, we shall proceed to criticise this 

 imaginary mind. 



In the first place, we shall state as an incontro- 

 vertible maxim in morality that a god has no right to 

 create men except for their own good. This may appear 

 to the reader an extraordinary statement ; but had he 

 lived in France at the time of Louis XIV, he would 

 also have thought it an extraordinary statement that 

 kings existed for the good of the people and not people 

 for the good of kings. When the Duke of Burgundy 

 first propounded that axiom, St Simon, by no means a 

 servile courtier, and an enlightened man for his age, 

 was " delighted with the benevolence of the saying, but 

 startled by its novelty and terrified by its boldness." 

 Our proposition may appear very strange, but it certainly 

 cannot be refuted ; for if it is said that the Creator is 

 so great that he is placed above our laws of morality, 

 then what is that but placing Might above Right ? 

 And if the maxim be admitted as correct, then how 

 can the phenomena of life be justified ? 



It is said that the Creator is omnipotent, aud also 

 that he is benevolent. But one proposition contra- 

 dicts the other. It is said that he is perfect in power, 

 and that he is also perfect in purity. We shall show 

 that he cannot possibly be both. 



The conduct of a father towards his child appears to 

 be cruel, but it is not cruel in reality. He beats the 

 child, but he does it for the child's own good ; he is 

 not omnipotent ; he is therefore obliged to choose 

 between two evils. But the Creator is omnipotent; 

 he therefore chooses cruelty as a means of education 

 or development ; he therefore has a preference for 

 cruelty or he would not choose it; he is therefore foud 



