SHALL WE ACCEPT THE UNIVERSE? 



notwithstanding the fact that cold and suffering, 

 war and pestilence, cyclones and earthquakes, still 

 occur upon the relatively tiny ball that carries us 

 through the vast sidereal spaces, good is greatly 

 in the ascendancy. The voyage is not all calm and 

 sunshine, but it is safe, and the dangers from colli- 

 sion and shipwreck are very remote. It is a vast and 

 lonely sea over which we are journeying, no other 

 ships hail us and bid us Godspeed, no messages, 

 wireless or other, may reach us from other shores, 

 or other seas; forces and influences do play upon us 

 from all parts of the empyrean, but, so far as we are 

 aware, no living thing on other spheres takes note 

 of our going or our coming. 



In our practical lives we are compelled to sepa- 

 rate good from evil — the one being that which 

 favors our well-being, and the other that which an- 

 tagonizes it; but, viewed as a whole, the universe 

 is all good; it is an infinite complex of compensations 

 out of which worlds and systems of worlds, and all 

 which they hold, have emerged, and are emerging, 

 and will emerge. This is not the language of the 

 heart or of the emotions — our anthropomorphism 

 cries out against it — but it is the language of 

 serene, impartial reason. It is good for us occasion- 

 ally to get outside the sphere of our personal life 

 and view things as they are in and of themselves. A 

 great demand is made upon our faith — faith in the 

 absolute trustworthiness of human reason, and in 



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