From the Unconscious to the Conscious 



variation and eliminating new forms which have 

 begun to develop. 



Another botanist, Luther Burbank, 1 a grower in 

 California, after much research, concludes that a rich 

 soil and generally favourable conditions encourage 

 frequent variations and assist them, while rigorous 

 conditions of life arrest variation and bring about general 

 regression. 



For humanity, as for the lower forms of life, years 

 of famine, of epidemics, and of war, give rise to an 

 enfeebled and inferior generation. 



Two things therefore are certain: (a) evil, when 

 too pronounced, does not favour evolution, but impedes 

 it. It is no longer a spur, but a curb; and () 

 evil is not an indispensable condition of evolution, since 

 life is more abundant and varied in regions which are 

 favoured by conditions of climate, food, and well- 

 being. 



Another decisive consideration is, that since adap- 

 tation and the struggle for life are secondary factors, and 

 since evolution can be conceived to take place without 

 them, it is clear that evil can no longer be considered 

 as the sine qua non of evolution. 



It is plausible that evil should be inevitable in the 

 lower phases of evolution, and should then appear as 

 the measure of their inferiority; but it cannot be so 

 considered in all cases, unless we imagine the worlds 

 evolving under a primitive impulse which is both blind 

 and unconscious. This will not fit with any hypothesis 

 of a divine plan. 



No arguments, however subtle, can hold against 

 this evidence : ' a Creator is a Being in whom all things 

 have their reason and their cause, and consequently 

 supreme and final responsibility vests in Him. He thus 

 bears the weight of all that there is of evil in the universe. 

 In the degree that the ideas of infinite power and supreme 



1 Delage et Goldsmith : Les TUories de Involution. 

 153 



