e the new truth as surely as the old error fell outside
the old truth. And the case of moral goodness is precisely parallel. The
higher goodness may be so defined as to require failure and sin. Thus it
may be maintained that there can be no true success without struggle,
and no true spiritual exaltation except through repentance. But what of
failure unredeemed, sin unrepented, evil uncompensated and unresolved?
Nothing has been gained after all but a new definition of goodness--and
a new definition of evil. And this is an ethical, not a metaphysical
question. The problem of evil, like the problem of error, is as far from
solution as ever. Indeed, the very urgency of these problems is due to
metaphysical absolutism. For this philosophy defines the universe as a
perfect unity. Measured by the standard of such an ideal universe, the
parts of finite experience take on a fragmentary and baffling character
which they would not otherwise possess. The absolute perfection must by
definition both determine and exclude the imperfect. Thus absolutism
bankrupts the universe by holding it accountable for what it can never
pay.

[Sidenote: Collective Character of the Universe as a Whole.]

Sect. 213. If the attempt to construct experience in the special terms
of some part of experience be abandoned, how is reality to be defined?
It is evident that in that case there can be no definition of reality as
such. It must be regarded as a collection of all elements, relations,
principles, systems, that compose it. All truths will be true of it, and
it will be the subject of all truths. Reality is at least physical,
psychical, moral, and rational. That which is physical is not
necessarily moral or psychical, but may be either or both of these. Thus
it is a commonplace of experience that what has bulk and weight may or
may not be good, and may or may not be known. Similarly, that which is
psychical may or may not be physical, moral, or rational; and that which
is moral or rational may or may not be physical and psychical. There is,
then, an indeterminism in the universe, a mere coincidence of
principles, in that it contains physical, psychical, moral, logical
orders, without being in all respects either a physical, a psychical, a
moral, or a logical necessity.[420:13] Reality or experience itself is
neutral in the sense of being exclusively predetermined by no one of the
several systems it contains. But the different systems of experience
reta