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RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART.
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as a modern thinker might use. Evil in the creation does not imply evil in the Creator; its existence is part of a vast scheme of Providence: and because, with our limited faculties, we cannot discern the final cause or design of everything in nature (e.g., the poison of the rattlesnake), we have no right to say, therefore, that no such final cause exists. Listen again to Plato (speaking in the person of Socrates) in the "Theætetus."
"Soc. Evils, Theodorus, can never perish; for there must always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Of necessity, they hover around this mortal sphere and the earthly nature, having no place among the gods in heaven. Wherefore, also, we ought to fly away thither; and to fly thither is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy, just, and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot easily convince mankind that they should pursue virtue or avoid vice, not for the reasons which the many give—in order, forsooth, that a man may seem to be good;—this is what they are always repeating, and this, in my judgment, is an old wives' fable. Let them hear the truth: In God is no unrighteousness at all—He is altogether righteous; and there is nothing more like Him than he of us who is the most righteous. And the true wisdom of men, and their nothingness and cowardice, are nearly concerned with this. For to know this is true wisdom and manhood, and the ignorance of this is too plainly folly and vice. . . . There are two patterns set before men in nature: the one blessed and divine, the other godless and wretched; and they do not see, in their utter folly and infatuation, that they are growing like the one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds; and the penalty is, that they lead a life answering to the pattern which they resemble. And if we tell them, that unless they depart from their cunning, the place of
