THE FAITH OF A NATURALIST 



Everything in organic nature — trees, grasses, 

 flowers, insects, fishes, mammals — is beset by evil 

 of some kind. The natural order is good because it 

 brought us here and keeps us here, but evil has al- 

 ways dogged our footsteps. Leaf -blight is an evil to 

 the tree, smallpox is an evil to man, frost is an evil 

 to the insects, flood an evil to the fishes. 



Moral evil — hatred, envy, greed, lying, cruelty, 

 cheating — is of another order. These vices have no 

 existence below the human sphere. We call them 

 evils because they are disharmonies; they are inimi- 

 cal to the highest standard of human happiness and 

 well-being. They make a man less a man, they work 

 discord and develop needless friction. Sand in the 

 engine of your car and water in the gasoline are 

 evils, and malice and jealousy and selfishness in 

 your heart are analogous evils. 



In our day we read the problem of Nature and 

 God in a new light, the light of science, or of eman- 

 cipated human reason, and the old myths mean lit- 

 tle to us. We accept Nature as we find it, and do not 

 crave the intervention of a God that sits behind 

 and is superior to it. The self-activity of the 

 cosmos suffices. We accept the tornadoes and earth- 

 quakes and world wars, and do not lose faith. We 

 arm ourselves against them as best we can. We ac- 

 cept the bounty of the rain, the sunshine, the soil, 

 the changing seasons, and the vast armory of non- 

 living forces, and from them equip or teach our- 



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