That wise old Roman, Marcus Aurelius, says, “Nothing is evil which is according to nature.” At that moment he is thinking especially of death which, when it comes in the course of nature, is not an evil, unless life itself is also an evil. After the lamp of life is burned out, death is not an evil, rather is it a good. But premature death, death by accident or disease, before a man has done his work or used up his capital of vitality, is an evil. Disease itself is an evil, but if we lived according to nature there would be no disease; we should die the natural, painless death of old age. Of course there is no such thing as absolute evil or absolute good. Evil is that which is against our well-being, and good is that which promotes it. We always postulate the existence of life when we speak of good and evil. Excesses in nature are evil to us because they bring destruction and death in their train. They are disharmonies in the scheme of things, because they frustrate and bring to naught. The war which Marcus Aurelius was waging when he wrote those passages was an evil in itself, though good might come out of it. Everything in organic nature--trees, grasses, flowers, insects, fishes, mammals--is beset by evil of some kind. The natural order is good because it brought us here and keeps us here, but evil has always dogged our footsteps. Leaf-blight is an evil to the tree, smallpox is an evil to man, frost is an evil to the insects, flood an evil to the fishes. Moral evil--hatred, envy, greed, lying, cruelty, cheating--is of another order. These vices have no existence below the human sphere. We call them evils because they are disharmonies; they are inimical to the highest standard of human happiness and well-being. They make a man less a man, they work discord and develop needless friction. Sand in the engine of your car and water in the gasoline are evils, and malice and jealousy and selfishness in your heart are analogous evils.