Value of Doubt 271 



individual, the algebraic sums of happiness in the 

 whole chain being proportional to merit. The Stoics 

 were metaph5^sicians and imagined an immanent, om- 

 nipotent, and infinitely beneficent First Cause. Evil 

 was incompatible with this, and so they held, against 

 experience, that either it did not exist, or that it was 

 inflicted for our benefit or due to our fault. In one 

 fashion or another, all the great systems of thought had 

 recognised the antagonism and had attempted some 

 explanation of it. Huxley's view was that the modern 

 world with its new philosophy was only retreading the 

 toil-worn paths of the old. Scientific optimism was 

 being replaced by a frank pessimism. Cosmic evolu- 

 tion might be accountable for both good and evil, but 

 knowledge of it provided no better reason for choice of 

 the good than did earlier speculation. The cosmic 

 process was not only non-moral but immoral ; good- 

 ness did not lead to success in it, and laws and moral 

 precepts could only be addressed to the curbing of it. 



In a sense these conclusions of Huxley seemed to 

 lead to absolute pessimism, but he offered some miti- 

 gating considerations. Society remains subject to the 

 cosmic process, but the less as civilisation advances 

 and ethical man is the more ready to combat it. The 

 history of civilisation shows that we have some hope 

 of this, for "when physiolog}^ psychology, ethics, and 

 political science, now befogged by crude anticipations 

 and futile analogies, have emerged from their child- 

 hood, they may work as much change on human 

 affairs as the earlier- ripened physical sciences wrought 

 on material progress." And so, remembering that the 

 evil cosmic nature in us has the foothold of millions of 

 years, and never hoping to abandon sorrow and pain, 

 we may yet, in the manhood of our race, accept our 



