CHAP. VI.] SCHOLAR OF TRINITY. 183 



on every other ; one day he says that the man that can be 

 happy in such a world is a brute, and the next day that if 

 a man is not happy here he is a moping fool. At last they 

 assert the Cretan dilemma, that if a man says that man is 

 ignorant and foolish, it was ignorant and foolish to say so. 

 Solomon, they say, was used up when he wrote Ecclesiastes, 

 and said " all is vanity" in a relative sense, having himself 

 been so. Solomon describes the search after Happiness for 

 its own sake and for the sake of possession. It is as if a 

 strong man should collect into his house all the beauty of 

 the world, and be condemned to look out of the window 

 and marvel that no good thing was to be seen. " No man 

 can eat his cake and have it." I would add that what 

 remains till to-morrow will stink. 



As for evil being unripe good, I say nothing with 

 respect to objective evil, except that it is a part of the 

 universe which it may be the business of immortal man to 

 search out for ever, and still see more beyond. We cannot 

 understand it because it is relative, and relative to more 

 than we know. But subjective evil is absolute; we are 

 conscious of it as independent of external circumstances ; 

 its physical power is bounded by our finitude, bodily and 

 mental, but within these its intensity is without measure. 

 A bullet may be diverted from its course by the medium 

 through which it passes, or it may take a wrong one owing 

 to the unskilfulness of the shooter, or the intended victim 

 may change his place; but all this depends, not on the will 

 of the shooter, but on the ignorance of his mind, the weak- 

 ness of his body, the resistance of inert matter, or the 

 subsequent act of another agent ; the bullet of the murderer 

 may be turned aside to drive a nail, or what not, but his 

 will is independent of all this, and may be judged at once 

 without appeal. 



Yet still the lady shook her head, 



And swore by yea and nay, 

 My whole was all that lie had said, 



And all that he could say. 



J. C. MAXWELL. 



