SOUNDINGS 



ress. Of course every noxious insect, every noxious 

 plant and beast and death-dealing germ is from 

 Him also. "Wars when just" are from Him also. 

 Who or what are they from when they are not just, 

 the great Cardinal does not say. Can both sides be 

 just? Into such absurdities does the conception of a 

 manlike God lead us. 



The modern scientific mind, quite as imaginative 

 — if not more so — as the typical theological mind, 

 never gets mired in such contradictions or tangled 

 up in such childish anthropomorphism. Such con- 

 fusion arises out of the habit of mind which sees the 

 whole creation directed to man; his good is its one 

 object and aim, and when his good suffers, some- 

 thing has miscarried. The cruel and destructive 

 things in nature can only be accounted for on the 

 theory that some aboriginal calamity, like the fall 

 of man, had visited the world before God took 

 charge of things. 



The naturalist sees this as the best possible world, 

 sees that Nature is not an indulgent stepmother, 

 but a strict disciplinarian; that the good and well- 

 being of all is her aim; that suffering and defeat 

 are relative; that God's ways to man are not justi- 

 fied in a day or a week, or in this place or that, but 

 require ages and continents to come to their full 

 fruition. The good and the evil that will come out of 

 the terrible World War will not all be apparent this 

 year, or next, but only in the perspective of history 



269 



