"And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there is no righteousness there is no happiness. And if there is no righteousness nor happiness, there is no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not, there is no God. And if there is no God, we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things; neither to act, nor to be acted upon." Have you ever thought what a dreadful world this would be without this duality--the opposite existences here contended for? Imagine all things in the world to be white! No contrasts in coloring! Universal insanity must result. The "dread of sinking into naught" is matched by the dread of having things resolved into a "compound of one." The absence of this necessary "opposition in all things" is well put, by a very recent philosophical writer, in these terms: "Evil exists in the balance of natural forces. * * * It is also the background of good, the incentive to good, and the trial of good, without which good could not be. As the virtue of courage could not exist without the evil of danger, and as the virtue of sympathy could not exist without the evil of suffering, so no other virtue could exist without its corresponding evil. In a world without evil--if such a world be really conceivable, all men would have perfect health, perfect intelligence, and perfect morals. No one could gain or impart information, each one's cup of knowledge being full. The temperature would stand forever at 70 degrees, both heat and cold [in excess] being evil. There could be no progress, since progress is the overcoming of evil. A world without evil would be as toil without exertion, as light without darkness, as a battle with no antagonist. It would be a world without meaning." The German philosopher Kant put the same thought in beautiful form when he said, in substance: The dove, as she speeds her way through the air, may marvel at the resistance to her flight by the atmosphere, but we know that but for that resistance she could not fly at all. So far Kant. Applied, the conclusion would be: As the resistance of the air to the flight of the dove, so is evil to the progress of Intelligences. [In the December number, 1908, of the "Cosmopolitan Magazine," I find the following reflections, by Mr. Ambrose Bierce, on the point here discussed; and while not accepting, without modification, every thought expressed, I consider the passage too pertinent, and too rich to be denied admittance into these pages: