Though this doctrine is now obsolete in the civilized world, it was employed by a large portion of the ancient philosophers to account for the origin of evil. This theory does not, it is true, relieve the difficulty it was designed to solve; but it shows that there was a difficulty to be solved, which would not have been the case if evil could have been ascribed to the Supreme God as its author. If those philosophers could have regarded him as a Being of partial goodness, they would have found no difficulty in explaining the origin and existence of evil; they would simply have attributed the good and the evil in the world to the good and the evil supposed to pertain to his nature. But they could not do this, inasmuch as the human mind no sooner forms an idea of God, than it regards him as a being of unlimited and unmixed goodness. It has shown a disposition, in all ages, to adopt the most wild and untenable hypotheses, rather than entertain the imagination that evil could proceed from the Father of Lights. The doctrine of Manes, then, as well as the other hypotheses employed to explain the origin of evil, demonstrates how deep is the conviction of the human mind that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. In searching after the fountain of evil, it turns from the great source of life and light, and embraces the wildest extravagancies, rather than indulge a dark suspicion respecting the goodness of its Maker. Section III. The hypothesis of optimism. “The fundamental principle of the optimist is,” says Dugald Stewart, “that all events are ordered for the best; and that evils which we suffer are parts of a great system conducted by almighty power under the direction of infinite wisdom and goodness.” Leibnitz, who is unquestionably one of the greatest philosophers the world has produced, has exerted all his powers to adorn and recommend the scheme of optimism. We have, in a former chapter, considered the system of Leibnitz; but we have not denied its fundamental principle, which is so well expressed in the above language of Mr. Stewart. If he had confined himself to that principle, without undertaking to explain _how_ it is that God orders all things for the best, his doctrine would have been free from objections, except for a want of clearness and precision.