and thus produces and presents to view what we call Evil. Thus, Evil is love perverted: it is love, turned from its proper objects, namely, God and the neighbour, backwards and downwards toward self: in a word, evil in its essence is self-love.
SECTION II.
THE POSSIBILITY OF EYIL, A NECESSARY CONSEQUUNCE OF MAN'S POSSESSING REASON AND MENTAL LIBERTY.
In the foregoing Section, we endeavoured to show what Evil, in fact, is; and to make it plain, that it is not a distinct substance or essence, but is simply an effect of the perversion of the proper order of man's mind: thus, that evil is not anything flowing from God, but is on the contrary a perversion, by man, of the good and happy life which does flow from Him: consequently, that God is not the author of evil, but man. But now, it might be said,—admitting that God is not the author of evil directly, yet might He not be considered as its author indirectly, since, in creating man, He gave him the power thus to pervert his own moral nature, and so to produce evil? Now^ this reasonable objection is to be met by showing that it could not possibly be otherwise; that the power to pervert his own nature, is necessarily inherent in a being possessed of reason or rationality and mental liberty. This point, then, we will now proceed to set forth.
God created first the inanimate universe. He set the sun in its place in the heavens, and thence produced the planets which were made to revolve around
