POE Sa Oa aa Pa sgtg pelle 
IN THE SHETLANDS 207 
in the next, such knowledge, however bitterly, or, as 
we call it, evilly gained, would be really all in all 
good. The gain would be eternal and the pain 
transient as well as necessary. We may suppose, too, 
that it would become an ever-lessening quantity, as 
**John Brown went marching on.” But somewhere 
and somehow all deep, essential knowledge—-as the 
knowledge of good and evil—must, I believe, be 
individually gained if the individual is to advance. 
Innocence, though so highly recommended, is really 
a very trumpery thing. 
That the path of individual advance should be 
through evil to good seems, in itself, likely, since it 
has been that of the race, and, moreover, what other 
can be imagined? Perhaps, however, it should rather 
be said to be through ignorance to knowledge. Evil 
is a misleading word. We speak of it as though it 
were something fixed and unchangeable, whereas there 
is no thing, however evil it may be in one set of cir- 
cumstances, that may not be good inanother. Murder, 
for instance, is good amongst bees, and sometimes also 
—so statesmen who make wars must think—amongst 
ourselves. Knowledge of good and evil consequently 
is knowledge of conditions ; and how can one learn the 
conditions of anything better than by acting in dis- 
accord with them? Putting aside, therefore, the 
question of inherited experience—another perplexing 
element in this perplexing problem—is it not possible 
that sometimes, at any rate, a sinner may be in a state 
of advance whilst a virtuous person is stagnating 
