is a
fearful spectacle of misery presented by this Cosmos, it becomes mere
question-begging to gloss over this aspect of the subject by any vague
assumption that the misery must have some unobservable ends of so
transcendentally beneficent a nature, that were they known they would
justify the means. Indeed, this kind of discussion seems to me worse than
useless for the purposes which the Professor has in view; for it only
serves by contrast to throw out into stronger relief the natural and the
unstrained character of the adverse interpretation of the facts. According
to this adverse interpretation, sentiency has been evolved by natural
selection to secure the benefits which are pointed out by Professor Flint;
and therefore the fact of this, its cause, having been a _mindless_ cause,
clearly implies that the _restriction_ of pain and suffering cannot be an
active principle, or a _vera causa_, as between species and species, though
it must be such within the limits of the same organism, and to a lesser
extent within the limits of the same species. And this is just what we find
to be the case. Therefore, without the need of resorting to wholly
arbitrary assumptions concerning transcendental reconciliations between
apparently needless suffering and a supposed almighty beneficence, the
non-theistic hypothesis is saved by merely opening our eyes to the
observable facts around us, and there seeing that pain and misery, alike in
the benefits which they bring and in the frightful excesses which they
manifest, play just that part in nature which this hypothesis would lead us
to expect.

Therefore, to sum up these considerations on physical suffering, the case
between a theist and a sceptic as to the question of divine beneficence is
seen to be a case of extreme simplicity. The theist believes in such
beneficence by purposely concealing from his mind all adverse
evidence--feeling, on the one side, that to entertain the doubt to which
this evidence points would be to hold dalliance with blasphemy, and, on the
other side, that the subject is of so transcendental a nature that, in view
of so great a risk, it is better to avoid impartial reasoning upon it. A
sceptic, on the other hand, is under no such obligation to preconceived
ideas, and is therefore free to draw unbiassed inferences as to the
character of God, if he exists, to the extent which such character is
indicated by the sphere of observable nature. And, as I have said, when