partake of that perfection
which he himself is. In the words of the Timaeus, he is good, and
therefore he desires that all other things should be as like himself as
possible. And the manner in which he accomplishes this is by permitting
evil, or rather degrees of good, which are otherwise called evil.
For all progress is good relatively to the past, and yet may be
comparatively evil when regarded in the light of the future. Good and
evil are relative terms, and degrees of evil are merely the negative
aspect of degrees of good. Of the absolute goodness of any finite nature
we can form no conception; we are all of us in process of transition
from one degree of good or evil to another. The difficulties which
are urged about the origin or existence of evil are mere dialectical
puzzles, standing in the same relation to Christian philosophy as the
puzzles of the Cynics and Megarians to the philosophy of Plato. They
arise out of the tendency of the human mind to regard good and evil both
as relative and absolute; just as the riddles about motion are to be
explained by the double conception of space or matter, which the human
mind has the power of regarding either as continuous or discrete.

In speaking of divine perfection, we mean to say that God is just and
true and loving, the author of order and not of disorder, of good and
not of evil. Or rather, that he is justice, that he is truth, that he
is love, that he is order, that he is the very progress of which we were
speaking; and that wherever these qualities are present, whether in the
human soul or in the order of nature, there is God. We might still see
him everywhere, if we had not been mistakenly seeking for him apart from
us, instead of in us; away from the laws of nature, instead of in
them. And we become united to him not by mystical absorption, but by
partaking, whether consciously or unconsciously, of that truth and
justice and love which he himself is.

Thus the belief in the immortality of the soul rests at last on the
belief in God. If there is a good and wise God, then there is a progress
of mankind towards perfection; and if there is no progress of men
towards perfection, then there is no good and wise God. We cannot
suppose that the moral government of God of which we see the beginnings
in the world and in ourselves will cease when we pass out of life.

11. Considering the 'feebleness of the human faculties and the
uncertainty of the subject,' we are inclin