ANTAGONISM. 617 



efficiently tliaii the former. We cry peace when there is no peace. 

 AVould the world, however, be better if it were otherwise ? Is the 

 Nirvana a pleasing prospect ? Sleep, though not without its 

 troubles and internal antagonism, is our nearest approach to it, but 

 we should hardly wish to be always asleep. 



Shakespeare not only knew something about gravitation, but 

 he also knew something about antagonism. He says, by the 

 mouth of Agamemnon : 



" Sith every action that bath gone before 

 Whereof we have record, trial did draw 

 Bias and thwart, not answering the aim, 

 And that unbodied figure of the thought 

 That gav't surmised shape." 



In no case is the friction of life shown more than in the per- 

 formance of " duty," i. e., an act of self -resistance, a word very 

 commonly used : but the realization of it is by no means so fre- 

 quent. Indeed, faith in its performance so yields to skepticism 

 that it is said that, when a man talks of doing his duty, he is medi- 

 tating some knavish trick. 



The words good and evil are correlative : they are like height 

 and depth, parent and offspring. You can not, as far as I can see, 

 conceive the existence of the one without involving the conception 

 of the other. In their common acceptation they represent the an- 

 tagonism between what is agreeable or beneficial and what is pain- 

 ful or injurious. An old anecdote will give us the notion of good 

 and evil in a slenderly educated mind. A missionary having con- 

 sidered that he had successfully inculcated good principles in the 

 mind of a previously untutored savage, produced him for exhibi- 

 tion before a select audience, and began his catechism by asking 

 him the nature of good and evil. " Evil," the pupil answered, " is 

 when other man takes my wife." " Right," said the missionary, 

 " now give me an example of good." The answer was, " Good is 

 when me takes other man's wife." The answer was not exactly 

 what was expected, but was not far in disaccord with modern 

 views among ourselves and other so-called civilized races. I don't 

 mean as to running away with other men's wives ! But we still 

 view good and evil very much as affecting our own interests. At 

 the commencement of a war each of the opposing parties view vic- 

 tory — i. e., the destruction of their enemies — as good, and being 

 vanquished as evil. Congregations pray for this. Statesmen in- 

 voke the god of battles. Those among you who are old enough 

 will call to mind the Crimean War. Each combatant nation gives 

 thanks for the destruction of the enemy, each side possibly believ- 

 ing that they respectively are in the right, but in reality not 

 troubling themselves much about that minor question. We (un- 



