e purpose of God in designing mankind in such a way that
millions of fine individuals should go forth to maim and exterminate
each other, to the accompaniment of untold suffering and misery?

Because the private does not know the purpose of the general; and
because neither the private, nor the general, knows the purpose of God,
is that a reason to conclude, or imagine, that there is no purpose?

Is that a reason to conclude, or imagine, that the private cannot have
and know a purpose of his own--a fine and worthy purpose of which his
conscience approves? Does not that same observation apply to the general
and to all other individuals, high or low?

Because certain individuals are born blind or deaf, does that imply that
mankind was not designed to see or hear? Because certain individuals,
through the effects of disease or abuse, lose their sight, does that
disprove a purpose for the eye? Because certain communities, or certain
civilizations, decline and decay, through corruption, does that prove
anything with regard to the intention and design of the Creator--except
that such happenings are apparently a part of the mysterious plan?

It may be that in that plan the soul life of a single individual has
more lasting significance than the rise and fall of an empire. Such a
conception is apt to strike a matter-of-fact intellect as the height of
absurdity. But even in the material world, when it was first suggested
that the earth was round, that conception also struck the matter-of-fact
intellect as the height of absurdity. So did the idea of Columbus--that
he might set sail from Spain, going West, and arrive back at Spain,
coming from the East. Nearly all the great discoveries and conceptions
of genius have struck the matter-of-fact intellect as the height of
absurdity. They dealt with an unknown principle which was different from
accepted notions.

But the meaning of a human soul in the eternal plan, or of a certain
phase of civilization in the unknown plan, are also unknown principles
and the opinions of the intellect concerning them are purely guess-work.

If, however, we feel inclined to use our imaginations, there is a line
of thought which might seem to have a remote bearing on this part of the
puzzle.

In the material world, and the intellectual world, and the esthetic
world of art and beauty, we may form a matter-of-fact opinion concerning
things of which we do know something. We can see the effects of certain