atry." Self usurps the throne of God in the soul. Conscience, the consciousness of the authority of the perfect, condemns this action by imposing the consciousness of self-degradation. It involves the consciousness of offense toward all to whom I stand related. It involves consequent guilt, which is the complement of offense. It is, therefore, the cardinal violation of being and all the relationship of being. The disrupting of true adjustment, it is the introduction of strife, the antagonist of all good by displacing good with evil. It is radical contempt for the actual perfection of God and its moral authority, and, hence, the enemy of holiness, benevolence, and truth; and is the corruption of being. Selfishness, sin, is the grand disturbance to the evolution of love, and therefore presents the essential "problem of evil.”

CHAPTER III

THE SOLUTION OF EVIL

I beseech Thee, show me thy glory.-Moses.

"THE problem of evil," in its second phase, is the question, How does love, in its evolution, attain the perfect determination of altruism-perfect benevolence-notwithstanding evil? Or, to state it in another way, What course must the evolution of love be thought to take in view of the rise of either error or selfishness, or both?

What has gone before exhibits the divine being as perfect, the human being as progressive, and love as the nature of the action which determines the perfection of the one and the perfect progressiveness of the other. Divine love determines the perfect being, and conditions the self-determination of progressive beings. And human love, upon these conditions, determines progressive being; progressing toward an ideal personality which, when realized, is, though dependent, the highest type of conditioned being-perfect dependent personality. Love is the infinite force working out the problem of the universe.

Evil in general is the practical obstruction or antagonism to good. It results either from error in carrying out devotion to the ideal, or from intentional lapse from that devotement. In the former case it exists in the person as error, or mistake, and objectively as trespass and misfortune. In the latter case it is a rejection of love and a substituting of selfishness as the mode of self-love. This, subjectively, is infidelity to ideal being, and rebellion against the sacred authority of the perfect. Objectively, it is the disharmony, abuse, and debasement of

all the conditions to which it is related. This latter mode of evil will be considered later.

It is clear that evil is the defeat, for the time being at least, of possible good, in varying degree, at any point in the career of any person or persons. Evil of either form mars, temporarily at least, the otherwise harmonious universe, and retards the development of the highest possible good.

Error must beset a person or a race whose exercise of self-love arises at the lowest stage of intelligence and power at which it is possible. This, indeed, to such a degree as to defeat the benevolence of the Creator, but for two implied considerations. These are, first, the fact that error does not imply a lapse, or break, in the love of the creature for his Creator, or in the devotement of selflove to his own highest ideal. The harmony of interaction with the conditioning action of divine love is unbroken. Error is a matter of misjudgment or unskillfulness, but has no place in the inner intention of love, and does not necessarily induce selfishness. Hence, simple error is mistaken action in detail in the preliminary or supplementary means of a true intention. But it may clash with one's environment of divine or human action and interests. For example, a most loving man, devoted to God and his fellow beings, and striving to be his best self for God and man, may, through error of judgment, practice that which injures his own health and that of his neighbors. Yet in all this his personal devotement to universal good is the same, and his spirit is morally pure and benevolent.

This fact is the foundation for the second relieving consideration, namely: The evil result of his misguided action educates him to a correct judgment; and his undis

his practice. Thus mere error, conditioned by love, is corrective in its tendency. It affords, also, the conditions for a more exalted exercise of love in beneficent reparation toward his injured neighbors, and in a nicer future interaction with the divine activities in his own nature and environment.

Moreover, a progressive development which gradually evolves moral freedom at the earliest possible stages of intelligence and power, though it must be most fruitful of error, nevertheless results not only in the least evil possible and is corrective in its tendency, but develops the greatest possible degree of innocent experience of good and ill. Error is thus made to strengthen the person against temptation to intentional evil. The highest consciousness of the excellence of right, and of the obnoxious character of wrong in proportion to the harm sustained, is thus acquired by finite persons. A long term of innocent error may so educate finite persons in the goodness of right and the harmfulness of wrong as to secure them forever against liability to intentional wrong.

In a progressive universe error is made, by benevolent conditions, to have a useful mission, but sin has none. Error, rendered self-correcting under the auspices of love, is the true "bitter-sweet" of human life, and is able to eliminate the bitter and perfect the sweet. If, in the history of a vicious race, it must be acknowledged that "there is a force, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness," how much more could the same force, in the history of a race which may ignorantly err, yet is devoted to truth and goodness, maintain essential, and realize universal, harmony! This force is the Creator's love, which, true to the ideal, posits and maintains an ever-present basis of correction, recovery, and harmony to dependent

is the element of perfection in a progressive universe. This perfection is not impaired by errors of detail. These do not disturb the reign of love, but can only occasion a change in the line of its development. Hence, the disturbance to superficial harmony which may come about through innocent error is not an essential evil, but may become a good in progressive being.

But there is a class of error which may arise as incident to intentional wrong—as the natural result of thinking from a selfish standpoint. The perversion of self-love to selfishness is a personal misadjustment toward one's entire relationship which must be fruitful of incalculable error and consequent evil. For example, that least malignant form of selfishness termed egotism, or exaggerated self-esteem, leads the person who is afflicted with it into endless absurdities, and often calamitous results to others as well as himself. To plead that these evils were the result of mere mistake will not excuse him in the judgment of his injured fellow men, but they will hold him blameworthy and curse his inordinate self-esteem which betrayed him into these harmful blunders. Thus, but on a much larger scale, inordinate self-love guiltily augments the evil of the world by its unintended incoherencies and errors. Many who have simply intended to gratify an appetite for stimulants have become debauchees or murderers. The informing power of a good heart and the misleading influence of a bad heart are such prominent forces in forming the judgments of men that centuries of human experience have stamped them, severally, as wisdom and folly.

This class of error is that which arises from ignoring God and devotion to perfection of being as the law of universal adjustment. Some of the ablest minds among men