EVIL IN THE WORLD. 167 



argue against any such limitation of the Divine Power 

 on one of these occasions with the most profound 

 thinker and acute reasoner I have ever known. 



3rdly. The Permission or Ordination of Evil in 

 the World. Almost equivalent terms where omnipo- 

 tence of the Creator is assumed. The problem of evil 

 under this relation has been the theme of endless dis- 

 cussion among laymen as well as theologians, but dis- 

 cussion falling far short of any satisfactory conclusion. 

 Every reasoning man has had this great question before 

 his thought, and been forced to recoil from it, or rest 

 on the faith that what cannot be understood here may 

 be made clear to us hereafter. 



Putting aside that theological form of the question 

 represented by the doctrine of original sin (a doctrine 

 which creates many more difficulties than it resolves), 

 natural reason has been variously appealed to for an 

 answer. In this answer moral and physical evil are 

 both concerned, and in closer relation to each other 

 than might at first appear. It would not be easy to re- 

 capitulate all that has been argued and written on this 

 subject. It has been urged that without suffering there 

 cannot be trial of fortitude and patience that with- 

 out temptation to evil there can be no virtue that the 

 scheme of life embraces death, and thereby the painful 

 changes which often precede it that much of this suf- 

 fering is due to our own errors or excesses that the 

 world is governed by general laws, and that man, like 

 other animals, is subject to these laws, and to the phy- 

 sical elements around him, throughout his existence. 

 Arguments of this kind, if they partially content the 



