Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/375

Rh yourself. A man struggles—or he doesn't struggle. And it all comes to the same in the end if it's built that way."

"That can't be true." Tempest lay back, staring at the wall. "Good and Evil are forces," he said. "Whether we generate them ourselves and let them loose in the universe, or whether they are in the universe and we have power to annex them, doesn't matter much, I think. We have access to them, anyway. And we can choose which we will have access to principally, and we know that the more we have to do with the one the less we can have to do with the other. That seems to have proved itself. Those forces are indestructible. Huge blind gods, perhaps. Purposeful things with individual power to attract or repel, perhaps. We don't know anything about all that. But we do know that we can draw those forces into ourselves and transmute them by the alchemy of our own souls into potent things. And we do know that, whether we like it or not, we have got to transmit those potent things to others. It may be possible for mankind to so absorb the Good that it will in time kill all sin out of being, as inoculation destroys disease. That is another thing we can only guess at. It is certainly possible for us individually to absorb the evil so far that we seem unable to retain the good. But the Good must be meant to win out if we would only help it. There is no other solution for the making of Life. And how do we know that the Good is not seeking us as we are seeking it? A new Force, like electricity or magnetism, ready to enlighten the whole universe if we would only give it a chance. We grope in the dark. How do we know that we haven't got the match in our hand, waiting to be lit."

His face was glowing and his eyes deep with a glory that Dick had not seen even in Tempest before. Dick looked at him in envy.

"I reckon you have lit your match," he said.

"No, no. Oh, God knows I haven't." Tempest put up his shaking hands to his face. "There were times when I could have killed you," he said.

Dick drew a long breath.

"Thank the Lord for that," he said. "You've some-