THE GOOD OF EVIL.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 15 May 1914, Page 2

THE GOOD OF EVIL.

WHY WICKED MEN EXIST,

Tn a book which has been described as "heroic" and "unique in literature," Mr. J. William Lloyd has laid down the thesis that evil is a necessary and benevolent part of the universal scheme. He tries to show that the world could not get along withouL it—that " everywhere evil compels good, and ever a greater good, and is the parent, the foundation, the root and beginning of good." Again and again the argument has been advanced that God cannot be omnipotent and all loving, or He would not have created a world so full of evil, pain and disease. Again and again exponents of pessimistic philosophies have fallen back upon this argument. But according to Mr. Lloyd, the true view is that evil is not an enemy, but a friend. Its purpose, he urges, is to bring out the best that is in us. We ought to regard it as a champion regards his coach, a pupil his teacher. "When a boxer is exercising with his trainer, there are hard blows given, hard falls taken, painful tasks assigned, stern restrictions exacted. To the careless eye the trainer is the enemy of the athlete, . a brutal unaster, • a capricious tyrant. But the athlete knows the trainer his friend, and his best friend, indispensable to the attainment of his ideal. He knows that every blow makes his flesh firmer, every trip and push and struggle of opposition has given skill and strength and wind, has made' him more handsome, mature and perfect in manhood. And as he steps forth into the arena, superb and beautiful in conscious strength and challenging pride, and hears the ringing plaudits of the thousands assembled, he loves this friendly adversary, who has beaten him, thrown him, opposed and denied him, as the truest comrade of his success.

Rvolution, Mr. Lloyd goes on to . point out, is but the illustration of this, truth. The evil of ,the past has built up the good of the present. Nature everywhere showers her rewards on courage and industry, her curses on cowarditee and in- . action.'. Savagery preceded civilisation ; all foundations are laid on stones and dirt ; there is mud and slime at the bottom ,of all clear water ; every seed germinates amid decomposition ; and every reform has had to fight its way up through martyrdom and persecution. Each upward step declares an evil overcome by some concentration or change of forces or finesse of action. Each characteristic, power or beauty reveals the same conquest, become easy and ■ graceful by repetition. Thus, "the eye is a conquest* over darkness, the ear over silence, speech and expression over dumbness, courage over fear, love over loneliness." The argument proceeds: "The whole history of man is but a commentary on the same truth. He has!come up to his present glory by availing himself of an endless and ever varying procession of opportunities guised as evils. All these, overcome by fighting or forgiveness, strength, skill, fierceness or. love, boycotting or accepting, destroying or assimilating, have given him his dauntless heart, his iron will, his marvellous brain, his muscular mechanism, so perfect in beauty and use, . his moral conscience, his spiritual intuition, his control of Nature's forces, his weapons and his tools, his infinite versatility in things mental and material. "Without evil we have no proof that gain has ever been, even to the millionth part of the thread of a hair. "There always comes first an evil, producing pain and a prayer of longing that it be overcome, taken away or avoided ; then resolution, action and struggle, endless till victory, for ' nothing is ever settled till it is settled right,' that is, till1 the; battled, defeated soul has attained final and complete conquest, and put its enemy and obstacle forever more under and behind it." ' From this follows the at first startling conclusion that evil men are just as necessary as good men, . and should not be hated. When a , man is under evil, he feels that he ! must fulminate against it; but when i'he rises above evil, he recognises /••that it is only a make-believe enemy, after all, and he stops his {fulminations. "At any given ' period of time, or phase of exist- , ence, past, present, or future," Mr ■ Lloyd remarks, "there /is enough . evil in a man's environment, if he chooses only to see that, to sink , him into misery and despair, and enough of joy and the material of joy to make him cheerful and glad if he will but wisely appreciate it." THE STRUGGLE TO PERFECTION. Mr. Lloyd adds: "Those whom we call wicked are simply good men whom the others of the age have outgrown. They are behind the times. They are just what ; we all were once, and their acts were once counted the foremost virtues. On the tiger-plane the tiger who can best throttle a man is the most virtuous, but when the tiger becomes a man he denies the . tiger virtues and calls them wicked."

But will not this doctrine, involving- as it does assumption that, from the universal and divine viewpoint, no act is, in itself considered, wrong or evil, lead to moral laxity and degeneration ? Does it

nox remove some of the incentive to good ? Mr. Lloyd replies, in

effect, No ; because a good man is no more ready to surrender his goodness than a skilful man is willing to surrender his skill. Such a one recognises that good is being continually achieved ;he has learned what he knows in the battle of life. Moreover :

"He will work without despair, knowing certainly that his labour will bear fruit ; and he will Tight without hate, knowing truly that his enemy is his brother, as sincere as he, and as helpfully a tool in the Workman's Hand. He will not be conceited, knowing that the truth he now so vitally sees will some day enlarge and change, or fade, and be absorbed by its opposite or a greater. He will condemn, but with undertones of approval;, he will strike, but in the spirit of the surgeon ; he wfll preach, but realise* that his words can reach only those fore-ripened for them."

The struggle between good and evil, Mr. • Lloyd intimates, will never end, but is destined to be carried to higher and higher planes.

"After all," he says, '"nothing so awakens our admiration as to see the fire of courage kindle in a dauntless eye, and great obstacles steadily and skilfully overcome. No sybaritic idlesse, no doles far niente, can ever so allure. In the past the world's worship has gone to the victor and the pioneer, and it will be so to the end, only on ever higher and more spiritual planes.

"The old battles of club and gun, of blood and brawn, will die out, but soul will struggle with soul, and self, in sublime agonies of stress and sacrifice, of enlarging liberty' and uplifting ideals." Mr. Lloyd writes further : "In other words, perfection is not perfection, unless it includes infinite growth and transmutation into the finer, into the ever-more-satisfying beautiful. The battle of life with its ever-recurring, ever-increasing thrill of victory, is the eternal and most fundamental law and characteristic of the divine life." —"'Popular Science Sittings."