462 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. hi. 



discipline, which is a little cruel, that it may be very kind." 

 That perpetual warfare going on throughout the animal 

 world, whereby those no longer fit to live are spared the 

 miseries of protracted existence, is found to be also the indis- 

 pensable condition of the origination of higher forms of life. 

 The disappearance of savage tribes before the spread of 

 civilized races, while often accompanied by unjustifiable 

 aggression on the part of the stronger, is perceived to in- 

 volve the increase of the sum -total of happiness. Thus, 

 with Michelet, we come to regard pain as in some sort the 

 artist of the world, which fashions us with the fine edge of 

 a pitiless chisel, cutting away the ill-adjusted and leaving 

 the nobler type to inherit the earth.^ 



But note that such a solution of the mystery of pain is 

 attainable only by the complete elimination of anthropo- 

 morphism from the problem. Introduce a quasi-human will 

 behind the series of phenomena, and we are at once con- 

 fronted anew with all the difficulties mentioned in the 

 chapter on Anthropomorphic Theism. The fact stands in- 

 exorably before us, that a Supreme Will, enlightened by 

 perfect intelligence and possessed of infinite power, might 

 differently have fashioned the universe, though in ways 

 inconceivable by us, so that the suffering and the waste of 



^ " La douleur est en quelque sorte I'artiste du monde, qui nous fait, nous 

 fa5onne, nous sculpte k la fine pointe d'un impitoyable ciseau. Elle retranche 

 la vie debordante. Et ce qui reste, plus exquis et plus fort, enrichi de s^ 

 perte meiue, en tire le don d'une vie superieure." Michelet, L'Oiseau, p. 106. 

 Compare the sublime passage concerning man, wherein Tennyson says : — 



*' If sj he type this work of Time 



" Within himself from more to more ; 

 And, crowned with attributes of woe 

 Like glorias, move his course, and show 

 That life is not as idle ore ; 



** But iron dug from central gloom, 



And heated hot with burning feai-s, 

 And (lipped in baths of hissing tear% 

 And battered with the shocks of doom, 



*• To shape and use." 



