72 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS n 



thing as evil ; secondly, that if there is, it is the 

 necessary correlate of good ; and, moreover, that it 

 is either due to our own fault, or inflicted for our 

 benefit. Theodicies have been very popular in 

 their time, and I believe that a numerous, though 

 somewhat dwarfed, progeny of them still survives. 

 So far as I know, they are all variations of the 

 theme set forth in those famous six lines of the 

 " Essay on Man," in which Pope sums up Boling- 

 broke's reminiscences of stoical and other specu- 

 lations of this kind — 



'"AH nature is but art, unknown to thee ; 

 All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 

 All discord, harmony not understood ; 

 All partial evil, universal good ; 

 And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite 

 One truth is clear: whatever is is right." 



Yet, surely, if there are few more important 

 truths than those enunciated in the first triad, the 

 second is open to very grave objections. That 

 there is a ' soul of good in things evil ' is un- 

 questionable ; nor will any wise man deny the 

 disciplinary value of pain and sorrow. But these 

 considerations do not help us to see why the im- 

 mense multitude of irresponsible sentient beings, 

 which cannot profit by such discipline, should 

 suffer ; nor why, among the endless possibilities 

 open to omnipotence — that of sinless, happy exist- 

 ence among the rest — the actuality in which sin 

 and misery abound should be that selected. 



