TOWARDS A THEORY OF LIFE 1429 



(2) onwards, to fuller interpretation of human progress towards 

 its best, and even of incitement to it anew, for the individual 

 and his community alike? And if so, is not this another way of 

 evocation of our latent Supermen — and of careers worthy of them ? 



THE ORIGIN OF EVILS.— Here surely we see the most portentous 

 of doors for trial of this simple and insignificant-looking Life-Key. 

 What vast field for thought has been more stimulating to man in 

 every way, yet what more resisting and perplexing — even to resigna- 

 tion or despair? Yet what can more clamantly call for renewed 

 endeavour? Yet after all these long endeavours of thought, and that 

 of all kinds throughout history, efforts of all kinds as well, we have 

 no adequate science or philosophy of evils, nor yet any consistent 

 policy of dealing with them. Here, as in so many cases, the initiative 

 of thought, and of active policy alike, must be credited to the 

 historic religions; yet neither their doctrines of evil and its origins, 

 nor yet their methods and modes of dealing with them have satisfied 

 the world; so that medicine, law, and other agencies, have to take 

 their own course. Yet with still too little to show; too often, indeed, 

 with mere broom-sweeping against tide and storm. 



Yet recall the old tale of the prisoner in his dark cell, with closed 

 massive door, which in active moments he pressed and shook with 

 all his might, yet for long years in vain. At last, peeping under the 

 door, he noticed a trifling key lying on the ground below the huge 

 lock, which his jailor had dropped. So out he came, to liberty and 

 what remained of life. Why not then try this Life-Key, and before 

 too late? And even at simplest, as he did (Pwf). 



One thing about evils is manifest from the first: they may be 

 positive or negative. So begin with the latter, as less difficult. To 

 have no Place is to be a landless and houseless wanderer. To have 

 no Work is unemployment, a sore evil, but to have no Folk, as 

 neglected orphan or outcast, is harshest fate of all three. Yet these 

 may only too readily unite, so in Poverty at extreme, in hunger and 

 rags, destitution and starvation and neglect by all. 



But positively bad Place, say bad housing, is in dirt and misery, 

 and involves disease ; and bad Work leads to speedy death : witness, 

 taking these together, the death-rates of the early industrial age in 

 Britain, and now repeated, as Indian cities enter on its example. 

 But bad Folk — "bad company" — does not that readily become 

 worst of all? And when we combine all these, see how readily the 

 tramp, and now too many of the sedentary unemployed as well, 

 become unemployable. 



Next consider the related psychological side. It is a hard fate to 

 lack Senses, to be blind or deaf; yet even in losing life, as thus so 

 easy, these are innocent of blame. Without Work, how gain Experi- 

 ence enough for employment ? Without our own Folk, we may still 



