The novelty of all this lies in the fact that the guardians of morality among the people are compelled at last to take seriously what the teachers of wisdom have taught. The insight of high religion may be said, then, to be a discovery in the field of human experience comparable with those prophetic conceptions in the natural sciences which, after being looked upon for long periods as a [p210] curiosity, are at last, because circumstances are ripe, seen to be the clue to otherwise insoluble perplexities. The concept of evolution was discovered by sheer insight innumerable times before the time of Darwin. Not much came of it until the rapid evolution of human affairs after the industrial revolution had somehow brought this neglected insight into focus with men’s interests. There are many conceptions in the science of the Greeks which are true intimations of what modern physicists have found. But an insight of this sort comes into its own only when circumstances conspire to make it inevitably appropriate. It is my contention that in the field of morals circumstances are producing a somewhat analogous condition: that the insight of the sages into the value of disinterestedness has become the clue to otherwise insoluble perplexities. PART III [p211] THE GENIUS OF MODERNITY _Where is the way where light dwelleth?_ Job 38:19. CHAPTER XI [p213] THE CURE OF SOULS 1. _The Problem of Evil_ The greatest of all perplexities in theology has been to reconcile the infinite goodness of God with his omnipotence. Nothing puts a greater strain upon the faith of the common man than the existence of utterly irrational suffering in the universe, and the problem which tormented Job still troubles every devout and thoughtful man who beholds the monstrous injustices of nature. If there were no pain in the world except that which was felt by responsible beings who had knowingly transgressed some law of conduct, there would, of course, be no problem of evil. Pain would be nothing but a rational punishment. But the pain which is suffered by those who according to all human standards are innocent, by children and by animals, for example, cannot be fitted into any rational theory of reward and punishment. It never has been. The classic attempts to solve the problem of evil invariably falsify the premises. This falsification may for a time satisfy the inquirer, but it does not settle the problem. That is why the problem is forever presenting itself again.