Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/727

 EVIL

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EVIL

ner of building the once glorious abbey of Evesham was.

Tanner, Kotitia Monastica (London, 1794); Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1817-301; Chronu-on Abba- tUF de Evesham in Rolls Series. Macray ed. (London, 1863); TiNDAL, History and Antiquities of Evesham (Evesham, 1794); May, Descriptive History of Evesham (Evesham. 1845); Bene- niCTiNE Nuns of Stanbrook, St. Egwin and his Abbey of Eves- ham (London, 1904J.

G. Cyprian Alston.

Evil, in a large sense, may be described as the sum of the opposition, which experience shows to exist in the imiverse, to the desires and needs of individuals; whence arises, among human beings at least, the suf- fering in which life abounds. Thus evil, from the point of view of human welfare, is what ought not to exist. Nevertheless, there is no department of human life in which its presence is not felt ; and the discrep- ancy between what is and what ought to be has always called for explanation in the account which mankind has sought to give of itself and its surround- ings. For this purpose it is necessary ( 1 ) to define the precise nature of the principle that imparts the char- acter of evil to so great a variety of circumstances, and (2) to ascertain, as far as may be possible, the source from which it arises.

With regard to the nature of evil, it should be ob- served that evil is of three kinds — physical, moral, and metaphysical. Physical evil includes all that causes harm to man, whether by bodily injury, by thwarting his natural desires, or by preventing the full develop- ment of his powers, either in the order of nature di- rectly, or through the various social conditions under which mankind naturally exists. Physical evils di- rectly due to nature are sickness, accident, death, etc. Ppverty, oppression, and some forms of disease are instances of evil arising from imperfect social organi- zation. Mental suffering, such as anxiety, disap- pointment, and remorse, and the limitation of intelli- gence which prevents human beings from attaining to the full comprehension of their environment, are con- genital forms of evil which vary in character and degree according to natural disposition and social circumstances.

By moral evil are understood the deviation of hu- man volition from the prescriptions of the moral order and the action which results from that deviation. Such action, when it proceeds solely from ignorance, is not to be classed as moral evil, which is properly re- stricted to the motions of the will towards ends of which the conscience disapproves. The extent of moral evil is not limited to the circumstances of life in the natural order, but includes also the sphere of re- ligion, by which man's welfare is affected in the super- natural order, and the precepts of which, as depending ultimately upon the will of God, are of the strictest possible obligation (see Sin). The obligation to moral action in the natural order is, moreover, generally believed to depend on the motives supplied by reli- gion; and it is at least doubtful whether it is possiljle for moral obligation to exist at all apart from a super- natural sanction.

Melaphjsical evil is the limitation by one another of the various component parts of the natural world. Through this mutual limitation natural objects are for the most part prevented from attaining to their full or ideal perfection, whether by the constant pressure of physical conrlitions, or by sudden catastrophes. Thus, animal and vegetable organisms are variously influenced by climate and other n:itural ("uises; pred- atory animals depend for their existence on the destruction of life; nature is subject to storms and con- vulsions, and its order depends on a system of per- petual decay and renewal due to the interaction of its constituent parts. It is evident that metaphysical evil does not, like the other two kinds, necessarily connote suffering. If animal suffering is excluded, no pain of any kind is caused by the inevitable limita.-

tions of nature; and they can only be called evil by analogy, and in a sense fjuite different from that in which the term is applied to human experience. Clarke, moreover, has aptly remarked (Correspondence with Leibniz, letter ii) that the apparent disorder of nature is really no disorder, since it is part of a definite scheme, and precisely fulfils the intention of the Cre- ator; it may therefore be counted as a relative per- fection rather than an imperfection. It is, in fact, only by a transference to irrational objects of the sub- jective ideals and aspirations of human intelligence, that the "evil of nature" can be called evil in any sense but a merely analogous one. The nature and degree of pain in the lower animals is very obscure, and in the necessary absence of data it is difficult to say whether it should rightly be classed with the merely formal evil which belongs to inanimate objects, or with the suffering of human beings. The latter view was generally held in ancient times, and may perhaps be referred to the anthropomorphic tendency of primi- tive minds which appears in the doctrine of metemp- sychosis. Thus it has often been supposed that ani- mal suffering, together with many of the imperfec- tions of inanimate nature, was due to the fall of man, with whose welfare, as the chief part of creation, were bound up the fortunes of the rest (see Theoph. Anti- och.. Ad Autolyc, II; cf. Gen. iii, and I Cor. ix). The opposite view is taken by St. Thomas (I, Q. xcvi, a. 1,2). Descartes supposed that animals were merely machines, without sensation or consciousness; he was closely followed by Malebranche and Cartesians gen- erally. Leibnitz grants sensation to animals, but con- siders that mere sense-perception, unaccompanied by reflexion, cannot cause either pain or pleasure; in any case he holds the pain and pleasure of animals to be far less acute than those of human beings, and com- parable in degree to those resulting from reflex action in man (see also Maher, Psychology, Supp't. A., Lon- don, 1903).

It is evident again that all evil is essentially nega- tive and not positive; i. e. it consists not in the acqui- sition of anything, but in the loss or deprivation of something necessary for perfection. Pain, which is the test or criterion of physical evil, has indeed a posi- tive, though purely subjective existence as a sensation or emotion; but its evil quality lies in its disturbing effect on the sufferer. In like manner, the perverse action of the will, upon which moral evil depends, is more than a mere negation of right action, implying as it docs the positive element of choice; but the morally evil character of wrong action is constituted not by the element of choice, but by its rejection of what right reason requires. Thus Origen (In Joh., ii, 7) defines evil as <rT^p-n<ns; the Pseudo-Dionysius (De. Div. Nom. iv) as the non-existent; Maimonides (Dux per- plex, iii, 10) as "privatio boni alicujus"; Albertus Magnus (adopting St. Augustine's phrase) attributes evil to "aliqua causa deficiens" (Summa Theol., I, xi, 4) ; Schopenhauer, who held pain to be the positive and normal condition of life (pleasure being its partial and temporary absence), nevertheless made it depend upon the failure of human desire to obtain fulfilment — " the wish is in itself pain ". Thus it will be seen that evil is not a real entity; it is relative. What is evil in some relations may be good in others; and probably there is no form of existence which is exclu- sively evil in all relations. Hence it has been thought that evil cannot truly be said to exist at all, and is really nothing but a " lesser good." But this opinion .seems to leave out of account the reality of human experience. Though the same cause may give pain to one, and pleasure to another, pain ancl pleasure, as sensations or ideas, cannot but be mutually exclusive. No one, however, has attempted to deny this very obvious fact; and the opinion in question may perhaps be understood as merely a paradoxical way of stating the relativity of evil.