Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/293

268 are possible to this, in case the evil is separate from the good. Either the One Reason was driven to take just this way, and could take no less expensive one; or the One Reason, not being bound to this road, still arbitrarily chose to take it instead of a better. But either answer is fatal. Was the One Reason unable to do better? Then it is not the only power at work. The Monism fails. The Reason was bound. But he who binds the strong man is stronger than he. If, however, the One chose this way rather than a better, then the One chose evil for its own sake. The dilemma is inevitable.

To exemplify: If pain is an evil, and if the evil of the pain caused you by a burn, or cut, or bruise is justified by saying that all-wise nature makes your skin sensitive to the end that you may be helped in keeping it whole; then the obvious answer is, that if nature is all-wise and all-powerful and benevolent towards you, it was her business to find a way of keeping your skin in general whole, without entailing upon you the tortures of this present injury. If a machine that we make runs poorly, we are not disposed to blame ourselves, in case we are sure that we have done our very best with it. But the machines of all-wise nature must not run with destructive friction, unless all-wise nature intends destructive friction. The same remark applies to all the eloquent speeches about the educative value of our sufferings. If nature could make us perfect without suffering, and if suffering is not itself an organic part of our perfection, but only an external means thereto, then it was nature’s rational business to de-