228 HUME x 



all along been infinitely good, they are not evil 

 relatively to Him. 



And this, of course, may be perfectly true; but 

 if true, it is inconsistent with the attribute of 

 Omnipotence. It is conceivable that there should 

 be no evil in the world; that which is conceivable 

 is certainly possible; if it were possible for evil to 

 be non-existent, the maker of the world, who, 

 though foreknowing the existence of evil in that 

 world, did not prevent it, either did not really 

 desire it should not exist, or could not prevent its 

 existence. It might be well for those who inveigh 

 against the logical consequences of necessarianism 

 to bethink them of the logical consequences of 

 theism; which are not only the same, when the 

 attribute of Omniscience is ascribed to the Deity, 

 but which bring out, from the existence of moral 

 evil, a hopeless conflict between the attributes of 

 Infinite Benevolence and Infinite Power, which, 

 with no less assurance, are affirmed to appertain 

 to the Divine Being. 



Kant's mode of dealing with the doctrine of 

 necessity is very singular. That the phenomena 

 of the mind follow fixed relations of cause and 

 effect is, to him, as unquestionable as it is to 

 Hume. But then there is the Ding an sich, the 

 Noumenon, or Kantian equivalent for the sub- 

 stance of the soul. This, being out of the phe- 

 nomenal world, is subject to none of the laws 

 of phenomena, and is consequently as absolutely 



