The problem of the origin of evil has been the great theological puzzle to all theologians and with all religious systems, and has turned the heads of more good people, and sent more devout Christians to the lunatic asylum, than any other theological question, excepting that of endless punishment; and yet modern science, which furnishes the principles for solving all the "holy mysteries" and miracles embodied in the religious creeds and Bibles of the past ages, shows the question to be quite simple and easily understood. The true signification of the word _evil_, in a moral sense, can be expressed in a few words. It is only another name for _imperfection or negation_. It is the negative pole of the _great moral battery_; and without it the battery could not be run. And without it there could be no morality, no moral principle or accountability, while man exists upon the present animal plane. In fact, morality without evil would be an unmeaning word. Evil is a state of imperfection running through every vein of nature, from the igneous rock to the brain of man. Some writers attempt to discriminate between natural and moral evil; but there is no dividing line. Moral evil is as natural as any phenomenon in nature, and is, strictly speaking, the phenomenal action of the brain. Moral evil is governed as rigidly by natural laws as physical evil; because (as science demonstrates) it has its basis in man's moral nature. And, practically speaking, there will be neither natural nor moral evil when nature (now in a crude state) grows to a state of maturity. Evil or imperfection, which now characterizes every thing, diminishes in its ratio to goodness or perfection as we ascend from inanimate matter to man,--the crowning work of nature. The theological world assumes that man alone bears the impress of imperfection, and that his imperfection is restricted principally to his moral action. "Man alone is imperfect: all else bears the mark of divine perfection." So says Archbishop Whately. But the converse assumption is nearer true: Man is the crowning work of nature, and his moral attributes constitute the keystone of the arch. He is occasionally erratic, and often wicked, but not universally and continually so, like some of the lower animal tribes. The hyena will murder at all times when opportunity offers; but man only occasionally, and when driven to it by the pressure of circumstances. All monkeys are thieves; but only a small portion of the _genus homo_ are such. Man derives all his propensity to evil and wickedness from the lower animals. His propensity to rob is exhibited in the eagle; his inclination to steal, in the monkey; his disposition to murder, in the hyena, alligator, rattlesnake, &c.; his disposition to enslave, in the red ant, which makes a slave of the black ant, as has often been observed by naturalists. Such was the wickedness among the lower animals in their earlier stage of development, that, by theft, robbery, and