GOOD AND EVIL

evil in the Garden of Eden on the one hand, or in the traditional Hell on the other.

It is important, therefore, to détermine if possible the significance of this imperfection. Answers to this question will vary, and with them the way in which the problem of good and evil will be presented. Is world-imperfection something fixed and immutable? Are the imperfections part of its essential nature ? Is life Uke a woven fabric in which there are white strands (good), and black strands (evil) ?

In that case the problem of good and evil would consist simply in sorting out and labelling the good and the evil éléments respectively — the black and the white strands ; for, f rom this point of view, thèse are ultimate and irreducible, and are what they always hâve been and always will be. This standpoint, however, is scarcely tenable to-day; we are bound to regard the world as moving, growing, developing. The figure of the black and the white strands will then f ail us ; things will not be good and evil in themselves,, but good or evil in relation to some central lifeprinciple which détermines the process of development. The evolutionary hypotheâs strikes a mortal blow at the idea of a radical dualism between good and evil. The Unity of Nature is not consistent with the coexistence of two primary , f undamental, and opposite principles. Whatever good and evil may be, it is now practîcally impossible to regard them as two eternally contrary

NO REAL DUALISH q 168

principles, dividing the kiiigdom between them, and sendûig a permanent rift and schism through the heart of the universe. Some form of monism is demanded Either one or other of them must be primaiy, or both must be aspects of some higher prindple^— as, for example, the Zoroastrians teach that Ormnzd and Ahriman divide the lower world between them, but in the upper world dwells Ahura transcendent and sovereign Gver both* ^

Human imperfection, again, must be regarded as a stage in a process of development. Our imperfection is at once the sign and the condition of our growth. It is not possible to separate ont the good and the evil éléments in a man, balancing them over against each other in computation of his moral worth, much as the* white corpuscles in the blood might be separated from the red. A man's life is not Uke a threaded string of multicoloured beads. It is fluid, mobile, organic ; it Uves, grows, changes ; what is harmful at one stage is bénéficiai at another. For him, therefore, things are not good or evil in themselves, but in relation to life-movement, man-growth. We caxmot regard ourselves as being confronted with ail possible things, duly labelled and pigeonholed ; ail in this place being " good," and ail in that " evil " ; so that if we pick and choose from the one we become thereby the better, or» if from the other> the worse. A thing is good or otherwise only in relation to you,