VIRTUE AND CRIME 155 



but in all cases is God's reward for the happiness and pleasure 

 we create, and the kind acts we do to others that will decide 

 the amount of our joy, pleasure and happiness. For it is not 

 the force nor the direction in which we throw the ball of kind 

 acts that creates the enjoyment and happiness of others, but 

 the force of the rebound of the happiness we so create that 

 adds to the comfort and enjoyment of ourselves and our lives 

 and creates our happiness by its rebound ; and it is not the 

 good or marvellous deeds we do, but the happiness that others 

 derive from our perfect performance of the small trifles of the 

 everyday acts of an everyday life that induces our neighbours 

 to contribute to our own heaven or hell on earth, for our own 

 happiness or grief in our modern civilised communities is de- 

 pendent on others. Thus it happens that those who try to be 

 very goody-goody neither attain the greatest happiness nor 

 confer the greatest good on their fellow-men, whereas the kind- 

 hearted sinner is often the greatest benefactor and best friend 

 and companion. So it comes about that sins which in some of 

 us would be unpardonable, in others only produce virtues (and 

 good) that far outweigh the evils they do, and so, not only go 

 unpunished by God, but even merit His reward, and remain 

 unpunished by man as well as by God. On the other hand, 

 acts that in the majority of cases are in themselves most vir- 

 tuous and are allowed to go unnoticed by man, are unpardon- 

 able crimes in the eyes of God. In other cases, from the 

 different manner and circumstances of their performance, pro- 

 duce unthought-of evils that more than counterbalance the 

 good those who perform them hope or desire to accomplish. 

 But the parson who decided his teaching, or the judge 

 who would interpret the laws, not as they are written, but in 

 accordance with their own judgment, would be unfit to hold 

 their positions either as parsons or judges. So the world's 

 punishments are often unjust, and those of God often appear 

 to be unjust in our eyes. Thus it is that in a subject like the 

 one we have now under discussion, it is impossible not to 

 offend the just and correct concrete opinions of others to some 

 extent when viewing the case from an evolutionary standpoint, 

 and if the subjects were not reviewed from every standpoint 

 by a mind unfettered and untrammelled by the present and 

 necessarily limited boundaries of what is expedient in the 



