a painful and permanently disabling accident, the
English Labour Movement would not have had one of its principal leaders
in Mr. Philip Snowden. And as for the influence of outward events and
environment generally, Mr. Chesterton may exaggerate in {109}
suggesting that everything good has been snatched from some
catastrophe, but he is certainly right when he says that "the most
dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment." On the
other hand, of an environment the reverse of commodious, it has been
observed:--

Logic would seem to say, "If God brings great pain on a man, it must
make the man revolt against God." But observation of facts compels us
to say, "No, on the contrary, nothing exercises so extraordinary an
influence in making men love God as the suffering of great pain at His
hands." Scientific thinking deals with facts as they are, not with _a
priori_ notions of what we should expect. And in this matter, the fact
as it is, is that goodness is evolved from pain more richly than from
any other source.[1]

We may think such a statement too absolute, and point to cases where
the effect of physical suffering has been altogether different; but if
it is true that in certain well-authenticated and not merely
exceptional instances such visitations have resulted in strengthened
faith and heightened goodness, our main contention is proved, namely,
that the attitude of the individual himself towards the events of his
life has much to do with determining what those events are to mean to
him. Instead of "Was the gift good?" we should more often ask, "Was
the recipient wise?" Pain is pain, and disaster is disaster; but the
spirit in which we meet them matters immensely.

{110}

But now we are confronted with a more fundamental question: Could not
God have obviated the phenomenon of pain altogether? Could He not have
made us incapable of feeling any but pleasant sensations? Mill, who in
his essay on _Nature_ devotes some--for him--almost vehement pages to
this subject, reaches the conclusion that "the only admissible moral
theory of Creation is that the Principle of Good _cannot_ at once and
altogether subdue the powers of evil" [2]; and in dealing with the same
topic in the essay on _Theism_, while admitting that "appearances do
not indicate that contrivance was brought into play purposely to
produce pain," he holds to the view that its very existence shows the
power of God to be limited _ab ex