OMPHALOS. 
187 
From which it follows, in the four cases :— 
1. Contrary to fact. 
2. The gods are malevolent. 
3. The gods are impotent. 
4. The gods are both malevolent and impotent. 
Therefore—There are no gods worth attending to or believing in. 
Metaphysics are sharp-edged tools, and often wound the hand that 
uses them. If the dangerous hypothesis he granted, that the physical 
evil in the world is a mistake, and ought not to be there, it is difficult to 
avoid the force of Epicurus’s denial of a Divine Providence. But if, as 
Mr. Gosse says, all death is the result of sin, and this doctrine be laid 
down in Scripture, the case is altered, and we will not yield to Mr. Gosse 
himself in readiness to bow to the decision of the highest authority we 
recognise on earth. 
Mr. Gosse has completely failed in showing from Holy Scripture that 
death in the animal creation is the result of man’s sin. 
He admits that the passage quoted by him from the fifth chapter of 
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans relates exclusively to man, who, as a moral 
and rational agent, is subjected to laws quite different from those which 
regulate the brutes that perish. 
In the eighth chapter of the same Epistle we find the remarkable 
passage (verse 20):— 
“ t rj yap jxa'raioirjTi y kti'ctis V7rerayy^ ov^ etcovaa uWa 8ia tov vtco- 
Tagavra k. t. k.” 
We agree with Mr. Gosse that y kti'gis here signifies the whole crea¬ 
tion, or at least all that portion of it that comes in contact with man’s 
caprice and madness, and suffers therefrom ; and we also admit that tov 
vToragavra means Adam; but we do not at all admit that umaioTyn 
(same Indo-Germanic root as our own “ mad”) includes the natural death 
of the creature as part of its signification; and we contend that it must 
be restricted to the folly, caprice, madness, cruelty, and vice of man, to 
whom the creation is made subject; and who, in his fallen state, inflicts 
his cruelties and tortures on all subject to his power, whether man or 
beast. 
We must leave it to the admirers of H. R. H. E. M. P. C. to answer 
Mr. Gosse’s question respecting the slaughter of the stag by the royal 
hounds on Ascot Heath, as well as to account for the loss of life occa¬ 
sioned by royal battues of pheasants and other innocent birds. It 
must be admitted, however, that it is the lesser of two evils for the 
Royal Field Marshal to use his untarnished sword in dividing the ju¬ 
gular of a dying stag, rather than employ it in its more fitting occupa¬ 
tion, the destruction of human life. Long may his H. R. H., accom¬ 
panied by the chivalrous Phipps, expend his warlike zeal, and waste his 
powder and shot, among the stags of Ascot Heath and the red deer of 
Balmoral; and may we never live to see the woeful day on which he shall 
