to judge of them so far as I
can see; and if I am expected to judge of His purposes when they appear
to be beneficent, I am in consistency obliged also to judge of them when
they appear to be malevolent. And it can be no possible extenuation of
the latter to point to the "final result" as "order and beauty," so long
as the means adopted by the "_Omnipotent Designer_" are known to have
been so [terrible]. All that we could legitimately assert in this case
would be that, so far as observation can extend, "He cares for animal
perfection" _to the exclusion of_ "animal enjoyment," and even to the
_total disregard_ of animal suffering. But to assert this would merely
be to deny beneficence as an attribute of God[27].'

The reasoning here appears as unassailable as it is obvious. If, as the
writer goes on to say, we see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a
spring trap, and in consequence abhor the devilish nature of the being
who, with full powers of realizing what pain means, can deliberately
employ his whole faculties of invention in contriving a thing so
hideously cruel; what are we to think of a Being who, with yet higher
faculties of thought and knowledge, and with an unlimited choice of
means to secure His ends, has contrived untold thousands of mechanisms
no less diabolical? In short, so far as Nature can teach us, or
'observation can extend,' it does appear that the scheme, if it is a
scheme, is the product of a Mind which differs from the more highly
evolved type of human mind in that it is immensely more intellectual
without being nearly so moral. And the same thing is indicated by the
rough and indiscriminate manner in which justice is allotted--even if it
can be said to be allotted at all. When we contrast the certainty and
rigour with which any offence against 'physical law' is punished by
Nature (no matter though the sin be but one of ignorance), with the
extreme uncertainty and laxity with which she meets any offence against
'moral law,' we are constrained to feel that the system of legislation
(if we may so term it) is conspicuously different from that which would
have been devised by any intelligence which in any sense could be called
'anthropopsychic.'

The only answer to these difficulties open to the natural theologian is
that which is drawn from the constitution of the human mind. It is
argued that the fact of this mind having so large an ingredient of
morality in its constitution may be taken as proof