ently by the name of Monism, under which it
has of late obtained a considerable vogue in this country, it must be
understood that we do not mean what Dr. Ballard calls _Theo_monism, but
a far less carefully thought-out and tested theory of life, which at
the present time is making a successful appeal to multitudes of inexact
thinkers. The fundamental idea common to this school is that the
universe, including our individualities or what we think such,
constitutes only one being, and manifests only one will, which all its
phenomena express. Separateness of existence, according to such a
view--which, after all, represents only the extreme logic of
Pantheism--is, of course, a chimaera, and so, _a fortiori_, must
separate volition be. The only real will--_i.e._, the will of the
universe--is regarded as good and right; and since there is no other
will but that one, and seeing that none resists or inhibits it, it is
ever being carried out, continuously operative. {56} To call this will
even "prevailing" would be a misuse of language, since there is no
other will for it to prevail against.

Now, regarded merely in the abstract, this conception might be treated
as a harmless eccentricity or speculative aberration, and is likely to
be so treated by the ordinary "practical" man, with his contempt for
"theories," and his pathetic conviction that speculation does not
matter; let us, however, see what is implied in this particular
speculative theory. From the primary assumption of this philosophy it
follows with an irresistible cogency that there is no such thing as
real, objective evil. Sin, if the term be retained at all, can at most
be only a blunder. Evil is only an inexact description of a lesser
good, or good in the making. Indeed, properly considered--_i.e._, from
the monistic standpoint--evil is a mere negation, a shadow where light
should be; or to be quite logical, evil is that which is not--in other
words, there is no evil, except to deluded minds, whose business is to
get quit of their delusion. The one and only cosmic will being
declared good, it follows that for the monist "all's right with the
world," in a sense scarcely contemplated by Browning when he penned
that most dubious aphorism. We propose briefly to show how this creed
works out--what is its ethical counterpart or issue--not by arguing _in
vacuo_ what it _must_ be, but by presenting to the reader three {57}
selected illustrations taken from the writ