(_d_) It is inconsistent with the benevolence of God to create and uphold spirits, who he knows will be and do evil.—We reply that this is no more inconsistent with God’s benevolence than the creation and preservation of men, whose action God overrules for the furtherance of his purposes, and whose iniquity he finally brings to light and punishes. Seduction of the pure by the impure, piracy, slavery, and war, have all been permitted among men. It is no more inconsistent with God’s benevolence to permit them among angelic spirits. Caroline Fox tells of Emerson and Carlyle that the latter once led his friend, the serene philosopher, through the abominations of the streets of London at midnight, asking him with grim humor at every few steps: “Do you believe in the devil now?” Emerson replied that the more he saw of the English people, the greater and better he thought them. It must have been because with such depths beneath them they could notwithstanding reach such heights of civilization. Even vice and misery can be overruled for good, and the fate of evil angels may be made a warning to the universe. (_e_) The notion of organization among evil spirits is self-contradictory, since the nature of evil is to sunder and divide.—We reply that such organization of evil spirits is no more impossible than the organization of wicked men, for the purpose of furthering their selfish ends. Common hatred to God may constitute a principle of union among them, as among men. Wicked men succeed in their plans only by adhering in some way to the good. Even a robber-horde must have laws, and there is a sort of “honor among thieves.” Else the world would be a pandemonium, and society would be what Hobbes called it: “bellum omnium contra omnes.” See art. on Satan, by Whitehouse, in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible: “Some personalities are ganglionic centres of a nervous system, incarnations of evil influence. The Bible teaches that Satan is such a centre.” But the organizing power of Satan has its limitations. Nevius, Demon-Possession, 279—“Satan is not omniscient, and it is not certain that all demons are perfectly subject to his control. Want of vigilance on his part, and personal ambition in them, may obstruct and delay the execution of his plans, as among men.” An English parliamentarian comforted himself by saying: “If the fleas were all of one mind, they would have us out of bed.” Plato, Lysis, 214—“The good are like one another, and friends to one another, and the bad are never at unity with one another or with themselves; for they are passionate and restless, and anything which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing.”