to the
inquiry, why he did not thus secure it? Why he did not preserve the moral
universe, as he had created it, free from the least impress or
overshadowing of evil? Why he permitted the beauty of the world to become
disfigured, as it has been, by the dark invasion and ravages of sin? This
great question has, in all ages, agitated and disturbed the human mind,
and been a prolific source of atheistic doubts and scepticism. It has
been, indeed, a dark and perplexing enigma to the eye of faith itself.

To solve this great difficulty, or at least to mitigate the stupendous
darkness in which it seems enveloped, various theories have been employed.
The most celebrated of these are the following: 1. The hypothesis of the
soul's preexistence; 2. The hypothesis of the Manicheans; and, 3. The
hypothesis of optimism. It may not be improper to bestow a few brief
remarks on these different schemes.

Section I.

The hypothesis of the soul's preexistence.

This was a favourite opinion with many of the ancient philosophers. In the
Phaedon of Plato, Socrates is introduced as maintaining it; and he ascribes
it to Orpheus as its original author. Leibnitz supposes that it was
invented for the purpose of explaining the origin of evil;(140) but the
truth seems to be, that it arose from the difficulty of conceiving how the
soul could be created out of nothing, or out of a substance so different
from itself as matter. The hypothesis in question was also maintained by
many great philosophers, because they imagined that if the past eternity
of the soul were denied, this would shake the philosophical proof of its
future eternity.(141) There can be no doubt, however, that after the idea
of the soul's preexistence had been conceived and entertained, it was very
generally employed to account for the origin of evil.

But it must be conceded that this hypothesis merely draws a veil over the
great difficulty it was designed to solve. The difficulty arises, not from
the circumstance that evil exists in the present state of our being, but
from the fact that it is found to exist anywhere, or in any state, under
the moral administration of a perfect God. It is as difficult to conceive
why such a being should have permitted the soul to sin in a former state
of existence, even if such a state were an established reality, as it is
to account for its rise in the present world. To remove the difficulty out
of sight,