Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/294

Rh velop us differently. But if nature could not perfect our characters save through this imperfect means, then nature’s means were limited. Nature was not all-powerful. Reason had some irrational power beyond it that it could not conquer. Even so we cannot yet run certain engines without smoke. When we are more civilized, we shall abolish smoke, because we shall get more power over the processes of combustion. At present, by this hypothesis, nature can only make characters perfect through suffering, this smoke of the engine of life. So much the worse for nature, unless indeed, in some unknown way, suffering is really no true evil at all, but itself a perfection that, if seen from above, would become plainly universal good. And does that as yet look probable?

Even worse is the other device often suggested for explaining evil. “Evil is a reality, but it is useful as a foil to good. The two separate facts, good and evil, set each other off. By its contrast, evil increases the importance of good.” When this remark is made about us personally with our limitations of body and circumstance, with our relativity of feeling and of attention, the remark has some psychological interest. Made to justify the supposed universal reason, the remark is childish. Always, indeed, it is possible that evil as a separate entity may be made out to be an illusion; and that good and evil have some higher unity that involves the perfection of the world. But if evil is real, and separate from goodness, then the talk about explaining it as a useful contrast is of no worth in the present