PHYSICAL EVILS AND "INIDEALITY" 329 



submitted to the tests of observation and experiment ; if 

 it is knowledge at all, it is capable of verification, and 

 the verdict of science on the subject must be final." ^ 



I have already had occasion to point out that science 

 is ready to accept inductive evidence as equivalent to a 

 demonstration where none other is possible ; that 

 science by no means limits her requirements of proof 

 to " observation and experiment " ; and it is perfectly 

 obvious that the " proof" of immortality cannot be so 

 tested ; but, like the rotation of the earth, the probability 

 is of a very high order, and has proved amply sufficient 

 for millions of believers in a hereafter. 



That probability will be considered later on. 



Three papers appeared in the first number of the 

 Hibbert Journal, p. 114, upon "Catastrophes and the 

 Moral Order" (Martinique and St. Vincent, May, 1902). 

 In the first, by Prof G. H. Howison, that author says, 

 in referring to Monists and Rationalists who assert the 

 incompatibility of catastrophes with a good Providence, 

 and ask, " Can such things be, and the supposed Author 

 and Ruler of Nature still be merciful and just and good ? " 



— " In this outcry we come upon the real burden of the 

 problem of Evil, and discover its source. Its source is 

 the traditional form of our Theism, and its burden comes 

 from attributing to God the authorship of Nature, with 

 all its apparatus for cruel torture, as we know these now. 

 To Materialism, to sheer Naturalism, to Atheism, there is 

 no enigma of Evil ; thinkers of all these types have Evil 

 before them as a fact simply ; they have no Almighty 

 Intelligence to blame for it ; their only business with it 

 is to avoid it so far as man can, and to bar it finally out 

 of life, if perchance that be possible." If not, then the 



^ op. at., p. 103. 



