03.01.04 - Section 4

Section IV. The moral world not constituted according to the scheme of necessity. In the prosecution of this inquiry, we have appeared to ourselves to find, that this boasted scheme of necessity is neither more nor less than one grand tissue of sophisms. We have found, we believe, that this huge imposition on the reason of man is a vile congregation of pestilential errors, through which, if the glory of God and his marvellous ways be contemplated, they must appear most horribly distorted. We have found that this scheme is as weak and crazy in the mechanism of its internal structure as it is frightful in its consequences. Instead of that closely articulated body of thought, which we were led to expect therein, we have found little more than a jumble of incoherences, a semi-chaotic mass of plausible blunders. We have seen and shown, we trust, that this grand and imposing scheme of necessity is, in reality, based on a false psychology,—directed against a false issue,—supported by false logic,—fortified by false conceptions,—recommended by false analogies,—and rendered plausible by a false phraseology. And, besides, we have ascertained that it originates in a false method, and terminates in a false religion. As such, we deem it far better adapted to represent the little, narrow, dark, crooked, and perverted world within, than the great and all-glorious world of God without. So have we not spared its deformities.