ss myself vanquished."

The orthodox theology answers Figuier's question by the argument that
"in our finite understanding, we cannot pretend to understand God's
plans, purposes and designs, nor to criticize his form of justice." It
holds that we must look beyond that mortal life for the evidence of
God's love, and not attempt to judge it according to what we see here on
earth of men's miseries and inequalities. It holds that the suffering
and misery come to us as an inheritance from Adam, and as a result of
the sins of our first parents; but that if we are "good" it will all be
evened up and recompensed in the next world. Of course the extremists
who hold to Predestination have held that some were happy and some
miserable, simply because God in the exercise of His will had elected
and predestined them to those conditions, but it would scarcely be fair
to quote this as the position of current theology, because the tendency
of modern theological thought is away from that conception. We mention
it merely as showing what some have thought of the subject. Others have
sought refuge in the idea that we suffer for the sins of our parents,
according to the old doctrine that "the sins of the parents shall be
visited upon the children," but even this is not in accordance with
man's highest idea of justice and love.

Passing on to the second view, namely that the soul was pre-existent,
that is, existed in some higher state not understood by us, from whence
it was thrust into human form, etc., we note that the questions as to
the cause of inequality, misery, etc., considered a moment ago, are
still actively with us--this view does not straighten out the question
at all. For whether the soul was pre-existent in a higher state, or
whether it was freshly created, the fact remains that as souls they must
be equal in the sense of being made by the same process, and from the
same material, and that up to the point of their embodiment they had not
sinned or merited any reward or punishment, nor had they earned anything
one way or another. And yet, according to the theory, these equally
innocent and inexperienced souls are born, some being thrust into the
bodies of children to be born in environments conducive to advancement,
development, etc., and gifted with natural advantages, while others are
thrust into bodies of children to be born into the most wretched
environments and surroundings, and devoid of many natural
advantages--not to sp