THE PROBLEM OF EVIL 



or if wild horses ever have erib-bite. Disease, as we 

 know it, is a product of civilization. 



Death, of course, is not an evil when it conies in 

 the regular course of nature; it is an evil when it 

 conies prematurely. The various social evils tend to 

 correct themselves. Moral evils — lying, cheating, 

 selfishness, uncharitableness — also tend to correct 

 themselves. Righteousness exalteth a nation be- 

 cause righteousness has great survival value. The 

 unrighteousness of Germany caused her final down- 

 fall. In an earlier age, when ethical standards were 

 lower, she might have succeeded in dominating 

 Europe. Our susceptibility to pain is not an evil 

 inasmuch as it safeguards us against a thousand 

 dangers. What I would say in a score of ways is 

 that there is no evil in the human world not of our 

 own making. Plagues and famines are always the 

 result of human folly or short-sightedness. Filth 

 breeds disease. Typhoid fever is a filth disease and 

 is preventable. There is no god to blame for our dis- 

 tempers. Nature's hands are clean. The wind is 

 never tempered to the shorn lamb, in spite of the 

 proverb, but the shorn lamb has not been fleeced 

 by Nature. A heavy snowfall is an evil in towns and 

 cities, but a good thing for the country. It enables 

 the meadow mice to girdle the apple-trees, but 

 it is a coverlid that greatly profits the meadows 

 themselves. It is therefore good to both mice and 

 meadows. 



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