CHAPTER X
EVIL
The problem of evil. The origin of evil has been the deepest problem of life.[1] It confronts every human being in one form or other. If there is one question which has eluded all investigations of the keenest intellects of all lands and all times; if there is one problem which has called forth volumes of writings from the profoundest of thinkers; if there is one riddle that has baffled all attempts of the sages at solving it; if there is one problem on which the last word yet remains to be said, despite the world's voluminous literature of some ten and twenty centuries—it is the problem of the existence of evil. It makes a world of difference whether one looks on life with a healthy mind and a cheerful spirit, or with a morbid mind and a sick spirit, or with an arrogant mind and a defiant spirit. The philosophies of life vary greatly from optimism or pessimism to cynicism or scepticism, according to the various casts of the temperaments of their founders. Life has been a blessing to some, but a curse to others. Some have sought satisfaction by giving up the world of activity with its joys and sorrows, others have tried to escape the temptations and vices of the world by leading a life of self-renunciation. To others still, freedom from existence has seemed the only salvation.
The existence of evil is a stubborn fact of life. The creation has not only a bright but also a dark side, and the latter is to be accounted for. All is not well with the universe. There is something that savours of bad. The optimist who says that all is right with the world is as much at fault as the pessimist who says that all is wrong. It is not good to dilate upon wrongs, real and imaginary, and pine away under melancholy and gloom; it is wrong to groan and worry over the darkness of the night, oblivious of the light of the day; but it is equally wrong to dismiss
- ↑ Some material in this chapter is inserted here from my Our Perfecting World, New York, 1930.
