Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/66

56 child can tell a piece of Boston brown-bread from a ginger-snap; but he cannot always tell whether his bread is spread with Orange County butter or oleomargarine.

Again, one man is color-blind, and in a knowledge of colors can make little progress. As an engineer, he would mistake a green for a red light; as a paint-mixer, he would be a failure; and, as a matcher of dress-goods, he would be little troubled by the sweet creatures to whom he belonged. Another man can distinguish not only the seven colors of the rainbow, but many shades of each. The progress of these two men in all knowledge resting upon color must differ widely. As in this, so in all departments of education: the man who is skillful in detecting differences holds the key to knowledge.

3. Relation to Happiness.—The wise and the good of all religions and the philosophers of every school are puzzled over what they term the evils of life. Assuming the Creator to be wise, good, and omnipotent, they wonder that he should allow these evils. They cannot understand the problem of pain and misery which meets them at every turn, and importunes for a solution. Why should there be any condition but happiness?

The philosophers best satisfied with the present order of things are those whom I shall name the protoplasmics. Denying the existence of a personal God, and falling back upon protoplasm as a substitute, they think that, taking into account the humble character of their protoplasmic god, he has done remarkably well. They are therefore very hopeful in their evolution theory, and in this respect have the advantage of their more orthodox brethren. They look upon creation with much the same feeling as that with which we look upon the first house built from cellar-drain to chimney-top by a self-made artisan. As a house pure and simple, it may be a failure, but as a self-made artisan's first attempt it is a wonderful success.

The great army of reformers, each in his way anxious to show himself the savior of the world, is but another proof of this widely spread belief that the world is in a very bad fix.

That this problem of evil is as old as the race is shown in the golden-age idea, whether it comes up in the Hebrew religion with its Garden of Eden, or in the mythology of the Greeks and the Romans. The explanation is, perhaps, this: Man clothes his god with the highest attributes he finds in himself. These qualities he magnifies, and joins to them infinite power. Seeing that the world is evil, and, conscious of evil tendencies in himself, he finds his way out of the dilemma by asserting that there was once a golden age, the condition of the universe as it came from the hand of its Maker, and that all the evil that has crept into it has come from man alone. Thus he solves the problem of evil, and saves the character of his god. We must admit that the theory shows a good degree of charity, humility, and logic. It would be a still better scheme if in it there could be found