there being but one Creator, especially since it can be shown that there is no necessity for ascribing the existence of evil to a distinct Source.
Evil is no more a distinct substance or existence, than disease is. The latter is simply a disorder in the arrangement or state of previously existing substances: the former is the same except that the substances, with which it is connected, are spiritual, not material. Evil is, in fact, moral disease.
That evil is, in truth, simply a perversion of the proper order of man's mind, may be seen from its opposition to goodness. Goodness—and consequent happiness—is simply the result of man's mind being in that true order and state in which it was created by, or proceeded from, the Divine Being, when it was in His image and likeness. He pronounced all things that He had made, good: while they remained, in the order in which they proceeded from Him, they were all, in their respective kinds and degrees, good. The reason was, that the Divine life and nature is in itself essential Goodness or Love, and consequent Joy. The things produced from it were of a nature corresponding, and were consequently good and joyful. To speak with more exactness, however, the things so produced from the Divine, or created, were not in themselves essentially goodness and joy, for then they would have been essentially Divine, which the created universe is not, in any part,—whether man or other creature. But the things created from the Divine Being, were substances and forms, spiritual and material, of a nature, not the same as the Divine, but correspondent to the Divine, so as to be capable of continually receiving the Divine life, which is essential
