EVIL

ORIGIN OF. The difficulty of the question lies mainly in this, that the existence of evil in the world seems inconsistent with the view that it was created and is maintained by an omnipotent and beneficent creator. Phe various theories on the subject have al: sought to elude this difficulty either by the supposition of some principle of evil equally eternal with that of good, or by regarding evil as having only a relative existence, being a kind of good in an imperfect and immature stage. Perhaps the oldest theory upon this subject is that of Parseeism, or the religion of Zoroaster, according to which there were two. original principles, one good (Ormuzd) and the other evil (Ahriman). This is the doctrime that is now very often spoken of as Man ich seism, from the fact that it was adopted by Manes, who attempted to engraft it on the doctrines of Christianity.: In contradistinction to this dualistic theory with referenee to the origin of evil stand the Monistic theories of Brahmanism and Platonism. According to the Brahmanic doctrine of the emanation of all things from one original being (Brahma), this original being was regarded as the sole true existence, and the phenomenal! world, with all the evils appearing in it, was held to be mere illusion. Similarly, Plato held that the good was the e ence of all things, and that the evil and imperfect contained in them had no real existence. The theory enunciated by Leibnitz in his Theodicee resembies that of Plato. In that work he a igns to the evil existing in the world created by God, which he holds to be the best of all po ible worlds, a merely relative existence. According to Plato, all that we call and evil is only evil to us because we do not see it in relation to the rest of the universe, for in relation to the uniyer it is not evil but good,and accordingly cannot be evil in its own nature. Another view on the subject is that which neither a igns to the evil principle (as it does to God or ths good principle) an original existence, nor denies the real existence of evil, but ascribes it to the exercise of man’s free-will. Besides the theoretic a i problem of the origin of evil, there is the practical one of the elimination of evil which forms the subject of Ethics. BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Hvil; Bosanquet, The Value and Destiny of the Individual.