volution of consciousness, instead of leaving the atoms to whirl
insentiently in the figures imposed on them by the stupendous
mathematician behind the veil?

[1] In _Mr. Britling Sees It Through_, which is in some sense
a prologue to _God the Invisible King_, we find an emphatic
renunciation of the all-good and all-powerful God. "The
theologians," says Mr. Britling, "have been extravagant about
God. They have had silly, absolute ideas--that he is all
powerful. That he's omni-everything.... Why! if I thought
there was an omnipotent God who looked down on battles and
deaths and all the waste and horror of this war--able to
prevent these things--doing them to amuse himself--I would
spit in his empty face" (p. 406).

A complete answer to this question would be a complete solution of the
riddle of existence. That, if it be ever attainable, is certainly far
enough off. But there are some considerations, not always sufficiently
present to our minds, which may perhaps help us, not to a solution,
but to a rational restatement, of the riddle.

It is possible to suppose, in the first place, that the Artificer,
though entirely well-meaning, was not a free agent. We can construct a
myth in which an Elder Power should announce to a Younger Power his
intention of setting a number of sentient puppets dancing for his
amusement, and regaling himself with the spectacle of their antics, in
utter heedlessness of the agonies they must endure, which would,
indeed, lend an additional savor to the diversion. This Elder Power,
with the "sportsman's" preference for pigeons as against clay balls,
would be something like the God of Mr. Thomas Hardy. Then we can
imagine the Younger Power, after a vain protest demanding, as it were,
the vice-royalty of the new kingdom, in order that he might shape its
polity to high and noble ends, educe from tragic imperfection some
approach to perfection, and, in short, make the best of a bad
business. We should thus have (let us say) Marcus Aurelius claiming a
proconsulate under Nero, and, with very limited powers, gradually
substituting order and humanity for oppression and rapine. This
fairy-tale is not unlike Mr. Wells's; but I submit that it has the
advantage of placing the Invisible King, or his equivalent, in a
conceivable relation to the whole mundane process.

Now let us proceed to the alternative hypothesis. Let us suppose that
the Artificer was a free agent,