196 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE v 



the optimistic dogma, that this is the best of all 

 possible worlds, will seem little better than a libel 

 upon possibility. It is really only another in- 

 stance to be added to the many extant, of the 

 audacity of a priori speculators who, having cre- 

 ated God in their own image, find no difficulty in 

 assuming that the Almighty must have been actu- 

 ated by the same motives as themselves. They 

 are quite sure that, had any other course been 

 practicable. He would no more have made infinite 

 suffering a necessary ingredient of His handiwork 

 than a respectable philosopher would have done 

 the like. 



But even the modified optimism of the time- 

 honoured thesis of physico-theology, that the sen- 

 tient world is, on the whole, regulated by prin- 

 ciples of benevolence, does but ill stand the test 

 of impartial confrontation with the facts of the 

 case. No doubt it is quite true that sentient na- 

 ture affords hosts of examples of subtle contriv- 

 ances directed towards the production of pleasure 

 or the avoidance of pain; and it may be proper to 

 say that these are evidences of benevolence. But 

 if so, why is it not equally proper to say of the 

 equally numerous arrangements, the no less neces- 

 sary result of which is the production of pain, that 

 they are evidences of malevolence? 



If a vast amount of that which, in a piece of 

 human workmanship, we should call skill, is visi- 

 ble in those parts of the organization of a deer 



