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 of evil, which has been such a stumbling-block to many deep thinkers endeavouring to vindicate belief in a supreme being and divine justice, may be explained and described as wasted and disproportioned good. Put any evil, any kind of suffering, mental or bodily, in its proper place and its right proportions in relation to its environment, and it will at once cease to be felt as an evil—it will have its use. Of course the practical difficulty for us short-sighted and feeble mortals is to find the conditions required; but however long a time may elapse before we can do so, they do exist somewhere, and will eventually be found. It is very simple, meanwhile—any child may comprehend it—when we feel ourselves puzzled to account for the evil that is in the world, to have the answer ready that evil is good misplaced. Certainly, to explain is not to remove it: still mere explanation is a satisfaction to the intellect.’

‘That’s Bristley’s idea, is it?’ said Mr Lockstable. ‘Well, it’s clear enough, I will say. And though I don’t go in for being a thinker myself, I’ve heard clever people say that evil is a mystery beyond them.’

‘They make it more beyond them than it need be, by not going the right way to work. They begin to puzzle their heads as to the cause of evil, without having first inquired into its naturve. But that’s all wrong; before we ask why it is, we should first ask what it is. The what goes some way toward explaining the why.’

‘No doubt.’

‘Great truths show their forms behind this small one,’ resumed Mr Smeeth. ‘It is manifest that a divine universe or a universal deity—it matters not much which you say—must include, not merely oppose, the phenomenon of evil. To set up a god and a devil boxing at each other across a gulf, is childish. You may have—and we do have—