COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



dences of less admirable contrivance. A scheme 

 which permits thousands of generations to live 

 and die in wretchedness cannot, merely by pro- 

 viding for the well - being of later ages, be ab- 

 solved from the alternative charge of awkward- 

 ness or malevolence. If there exist a personal 

 Creator of the universe who is infinitely intel- 

 ligent and powerful, he cannot be infinitely good : 

 if, on the other hand, he Ue infinite in good- 

 ness, then he must be lamentably finite in power 

 or intelligence.^ By this two-edged difficulty. 

 Theology has ever been foiled. Vainly striving 

 to elude the dilemma, she has at times sought 

 refuge in optimism ; alleging the beneficent re- 

 sults of suffering and the evanescent character 

 of evil, as if to prove that sufi^ering and evil 

 do not really exist. Usually, however, she has 

 taken the opposite course, postulating distinct 

 supernatural sources for the evil and the good.^ 



1 [One may contrast with this passage the more hopeful 

 view of the possibility of a theodicy in the paper ** The Mys- 

 tery of Evil," in Through Nature to God^^ 



^ " OvK apa TTOVTiov ye alriov to ayaOov^ aXka tC)V fxkv €v 



€)(6vT0)V atTLOV, TWV Sc KttKCOV avaiTLOV* OvS* apa 6 0€O9, 



irreLSrj ayaObs, irdvTOiv av etrj airto?, ws ol ttoXXoi XiyovcriVy 

 akX' oXtycav fxev rots avOpcoTrot^ atrto?, ttoXAcov Se dvatrio?* 

 TToXv yap iXoLTTO) rayaOa twv KaKwv rjixLV Kal tCjv (xkv ayaOdv 

 ovhiva aWov atrtareov, tcov Sc KaKiov aXA,' arra Set ^rp-elv to. 

 aLTLa, dXy ov Tov ©cov." Plato, Republic y ii. i8 (Bekker). 

 He goes on to refute the Homeric conception of the two jars, 

 Iliad y xxiv. 660. See also Aristotle, Metaphysica, A. p. 

 984, b. 17 ; and compare the views of James Mill, in J. S. 

 222 



