4. _Moral Evil._--But there is still another form of evil, the most dreadful of all. This one may be called _the_ evil, in some sense, _the only evil_. It is that of which all other forms are but the shadows cast backward and downward along the course of evolution and on lower stages of existence. This consummation of all evil is _sin_--_moral disease_--more dreadfully contagious and deadly than any organic disease. What shall we say now? Is there any rational explanation of this evil? Is there any possible-reason or excuse for an all-wise, all-powerful Ruler afflicting man alone of all His creatures with this greatest of all evils? In all other cases, the individual and the race sacrifice themselves for a time _physically_ for the sake of final spiritual elevation; but this _is spiritual debasement_. In all other cases, there is a sacrifice in the _course_ in order to attain the _goal_, but this is a missing of the goal itself. Is there any view which mitigates this evil, any philosophic alchemy which can transmute this evil into good? Age after age the human mind has prostrated itself in helpless paralysis before this problem. Most thinkers have been content to say, “Thou hast ordered it so. Thou art good. It must be right.” But many, and among them some of the best minds, have said, “Either God is not all-good, or else not all-wise, or else not all-powerful, or else there is no God at all.” Does evolution shed any light on this dread problem? I believe it does. We have said that all other evils are but shadows of this one, cast backward and downward on earlier stages of evolution and lower forms of existence. But from the evolution point of view these earlier and lower forms of evil are rather to be regarded as _fore_shadowings of the reality to come. They are but earlier and lower stages of the evolution of the _same thing_--embryonic conditions of the now full-grown evil. If so, then the same law must apply here also, though, as we shall see, with a difference. Here, also, the individual as well as the race finds himself surrounded by what seems an evil environment, against which he must struggle. The spirit of man is inclosed and conditioned by a lower environment, which he must subdue or perish. Here, then, is again a deadly conflict: “a law in the members warring against the law of the spirit, and bringing it into captivity”; a law of selfism warring against the law of love, and bringing it into subjection; solicitations to debasement on the one hand, and solicitations to wrong others on the other. How shall it be overcome? What is the remedy? Again I answer, Knowledge of and conformity to the _laws of the moral world_. But, as in other cases, so in this: this knowledge of and conformity to law, which is the true goal of humanity, will not be attained unless it is forced upon us by necessity and in self-defense--i. e., by evil.