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the attributes of God; for_, as God^s wisdom is iufinite. He 

 must have foreseen the best possible world ; as His goodness 

 is infinite, He must have wished to bring it into existence ; 

 and, as His power is infinite, He must have been able to do so. 

 In dealing with the existence of evils, Leibnitz divides them 

 into three classes, which he calls metaphysical, physical, and 

 moral. Metaphysical evils arise from the limitations which 

 are the conditions of all finite existence, such as ignorance, 

 weakness, &c. ; these he looks upon as inevitable. Physical 

 evils he regards as useful, either as merciful punishments for 

 sin, or as instruments of moral training and discipline. Moral 

 evils he considers as inseparable fi'om the freedom of a self- 

 determining will. To appreciate the range of Leibnitz's rea- 

 soning, it must be remembered that he embraces the whole 

 universe. The sufferings and sorrows of our small planet 

 might, from his point of view, be conceived of as a slight 

 discord in the general harmony of a vast scheme, which re- 

 quires for its full development the countless worlds which fill 

 the immeasurable depths of space. 



(II.) Stand-point of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann. — 

 4. It would not be easy to find a flaw in Leibnitz's reason- 

 ing, if we once grant his postulate, i.e., the existence of a 

 Personal God with the assigned attributes, — in other words, 

 if we are Theists. The Theist may criticise his train of 

 thought as an attempt to pass beyond the limits of our finite 

 intelligence, but he can hardly help assenting to its con- 

 clusions as in accordance with their premises. But the 

 modern champions of Pessimism are not Theists : they do not 

 admit the Personality of a Deity ; they do not ascribe good- 

 ness to the strange Power, or rather Impotence, which they 

 substitute for the Living God. It thus becomes necessary to 

 state, with as much precision as is attainable, the central ideas 

 of the philosophy of which Pessimism is only one of the 

 consequences. 



Schopenhauer (born 1788, died 1860), an able, though 

 crotchety, thinker, ascribes the origin of the phenomenal 

 world arovmd us to the mysterious working of what he calls 

 the Will. But he uses this word in an arbitrary sense, 

 peculiar to himself. By Will we generally understand the 

 determinations of a conscious agent; but Schopenhauer 

 extends it not merely to the actions of the lower animals, 

 but to the unconscious life of plants, and even to the forces 

 of the inorganic world. Thus he looks upon such attributes 

 of matter as gravity, impenetrability, rigidity, fluidity, elas- 

 ticity, and such forces as electricity, magnetism, and chemical 

 action, as the lowest stage of the clothing of the Will in 



