26 



to me) in dealing with this subject in his article on the special 

 creative hypothesis. {Principles of Biology, vol. i. p. 344.) In 

 speaking of the parasites to which man is subjected^ he asks, 



Shall we say that man, ' the head and crown of things/ was 

 provided as a habitat for these parasites ? or shall we say that 

 these degraded { ? ) creatures, incapable of thought or enjoy- 

 ment ( ? ), were created that they might cause unhappiness to 

 man? One or other of these alternatives must be chosen by 

 those who contend that every kind of organism was separately 

 devised by the Creator. Which do they prefer? With the 

 conception of two antagonistic powers, which severally work good 

 and evil in the world, the facts are congruous enough'^ 



In the first place, I would remark that, of the two alternatives 

 given above, the first is obviously absurd. It is axiomatic that 

 man has higher functions and destinies than to supply food for 

 parasites. Of the second, I would emphatically deny that, 

 because parasites live on man, that therefore they were created 

 to cause unhappiness ; not to notice the two questionable words 

 he has used. Some, such as tcenia, may cause great distress ; but, 

 of some others, we should be utterly unconscious until told of 

 the fact of their existence upon our persons; and I suspect 

 people, as a rule, are not aware of the presence of more than 

 four or five, the majority causing little or no inconvenience at 

 all. The purpose of causing unhappiness greatly fails of its 

 end. The real question, however, is far wider than pure per- 

 sonal inconvenience, even if it amount to an occasional death 

 of the individual. It is this : Were all " evils,^' from un- 

 pleasant things up to destruction of life, designed to cause 

 unhappiness ? That is the question, to which I emphatically 

 reply, " Certainly not."*^ 



Again. The sentence which I have italicised is one which 

 appears to me utterly absurd under any hypothesis whatever. 

 For, if parasites be an " evil work here spoken of, and man, 

 presumably, the ''^good," the argument cannot stop ivith man ; and 

 we shall soon become utterly perplexed to know which animals 

 are " good and which are " evil.^^ If those which prey on 

 others, such as parasites on man, be (as is evidently intended 

 by Mr. Spencer) evil, then, a fortiori, all carnivorous animals 

 must be evil,^' and we must presume all herbivorous good ; 

 and man himself must therefore be evil too. But we have 

 seen that he was " good,^^ and his parasites " evil,^' which is 

 absurd. Cor. Of what character are those animals, such as 

 the rat and pig, which partake of a mixed diet? 



The habitual use of this word evil has come down to us, 

 I suspect, from the distortions of subjective philosophy ; or, 

 rather, subjective philosophy has merely expressed the idea of 

 evil, which was hereditary from all antiquity, and inherent in 



