339 
What would be thought of some astronomer, or chemist, who 
found some untractable facts, and instead of sitting down steadily 
to ascertain their meaning, grew angry, and scolded the facts, 
and attributed them to a “ demon ” ? Yet this is what Mr. Mill 
does, on account of his own hypothesis as to what is best ; and 
as to what Omnipotence could have done, and Goodness should 
have done ; giving no definition of his meaning, too, in any of 
those terms. 
31. But that we may leave nothing untried, let us, to help 
any one’s conviction, imagine, and concede for the Mr MU 
moment, Mr. Mill’s perfect world. It would seem world imagi- 
to be a world of organization purely mechanical, 110d ' 
endowed from within or without with the gift, (which Science 
does not warrant), of never wearing out. If it had sensation, let 
it be an agreeable one, and so uniform as to be neither more 
nor less ; no part of it capable of accidental collision — not even 
a fall which might displace or injure. Let any one try to work 
out this thought, and say. Whether - on the whole it would be a 
higher kind of world than this in which we are ? Then if he 
thought so, what we ask would he do with his theory, as a man 
of science ? Would he not say, “ This kind of world without 
possible Vcariation is not the world I have to deal with now. I 
have to try to learn and understand the real world around me. 
If it prove to have evil in it, let me see what may be meant by 
it; and what is to be done with it ultimately.” 
32. The Christian is not the man to shrink from this. His 
is a philosophy as to “ what is to be done with it.” The Christian 
Surely, it is high time that this stupid crux as to the treatment of the 
“ origin of evil ” should give place to the worthy and ac s ' 
thoughtful inquiry as to the “ end of evil.” St. Paul, a very 
resolute thinker, said the “ whole cx - eation” was in its birth-throe 
to a higher future, not mechanical but a “ glorious liberty of sons 
of God.” From another point of view another, (and also once 
Calvinistic), thinker, of our own time, in his Apologia and else- 
where, gives a fearful picture of the present world, yet inter- 
prets its jarring conditions as implying a need of an “ infallible” 
and perfect settlement. This may be intelligible; but Mr. Mill’s 
hopeless talk of an a priori iC demon” is as irrational, as “ un- 
thinkable,” as it is irreverent. Here, as always, Nature’s highest 
suggestion is that there must be a “ Super-Natural ” Supreme. 
33. A great difficulty no doubt in the way of the Moral and 
Religious philosophy of the future lies in the fact, that Difficulty of 
the ground of inquiry as to Volition, Power, Force, and enc" 10 ™' the 
the like ideas, has been pre-occupied by the inert future - 
predestinarian preferences of the unelevated many, coinciding 
now with a sort of “ materialism made easy.” {See Note B.) 
