criminal madman. If he had been blind, he had not had sin; but if
we maintain that he can see, then his sin remains. Habitually a
bungler as he is, and callous when not actively cruel, we are
forced to regard him, when he seems to exhibit benevolence, as not
divinely benevolent, but merely weak and capricious, like a boy who
fondles a kitten and the next moment sets a dog at it. And not only
does his moral character fall from him bit by bit, but his dignity
disappears also. The orderly processes of the stars and the larger
phenomena of nature are suggestive of nothing so much as a
wearisome court ceremonial surrounding a king who is unable to
understand or to break away from it; whilst the thunder and
whirlwind, which have from time immemorial been accepted as special
revelations of his awful power and majesty, suggest, if they
suggest anything of a personal character at all, merely some
blackguardly larrikin kicking his heels in the clouds, not perhaps
bent on mischief, but indifferent to the fact that he is causing
it.

But we need not attempt to fill in the picture further. The truth
is, as we consider the universe as a whole, it fails to suggest a
conscious and purposive God at all; and it fails to do so not
because the processes of evolution as such preclude the idea that
God might have made use of them for a definite purpose, but because
when we come to consider these processes in detail, and view them
in the light of the only purposes they suggest, we find them to be
such that a God who could deliberately have been guilty of them
would be a God too absurd, too monstrous, too mad to be credible.

The god who had any part in bringing upon the world the English-German
war, the Versailles peace, the Russian blockade, is for me a devil not a
divinity. If you say that the Christian god had nothing to do with
them, I reply that these are among the greatest of all curses wherewith
mankind has been afflicted in modern times; and if he could not or would
not prevent them, what ground is there for looking to him for help in
any time of need?

How can I adequately express my contempt for the assertion that all
things occur for the best, for a wise and beneficent end? It is the
most utter falsehood, and a crime against the human race.... Human
suffering is so great, so endle