Present-day orthodoxy cannot consistently attack this position. The only telling criticism that can be directed against it is that which proceeds from the side of scientific monism. A thoroughgoing monist might reasonably contend that up to a certain point I have been arguing for a monistic view of the universe, in company with practically the whole scientific world, and have then given the case away by admitting a certain amount of individual freedom. I confess it looks like it; I have had to face the antinomy. I see that there is no escape from the assertion of the fundamental unity of all existence, and yet by the very constitution of the human mind we are compelled to take for granted a certain amount of individual initiative and self-direction. I think of the human will much as I do about the mariner's compass. It is well known that the needle does not always point steadily and consistently to the pole; its tiny aberrations have to be taken into account. But these are no real hindrance to the sailing of the ship, and the compass itself cannot run away. Again, some of my friends have been pointing out that, while the New Theology regards all mankind as "Being of one substance with the Father," our consciousness of that being is our own. I freely admit this while maintaining that there is no substance but consciousness. What other kind of substance can there be? Therefore I hold that when our finite consciousness ceases to be finite there will be no distinction whatever between ours and God's. The distinction between finite and infinite is not eternal. The being of God is a complex unity, containing within itself and harmonising every form of self-consciousness that can possibly exist. No one need be afraid that in believing this he is assenting to the final obliteration of his own personality; if such obliteration were possible, our present personality could possess no permanent value even for God. No form of self-consciousness can ever perish. It completes itself in becoming infinite, but it cannot be destroyed. CHAPTER IV THE NATURE OF EVIL +The problem not insoluble.+--Before going on to say more about human personality, especially the personality of Jesus, it is requisite that we should determine our attitude toward a great question which in manifold forms has beset the human intellect ever since the dawn of history, namely, the problem of evil. It is still the fashion to declare this problem insoluble, but I have the audacity to believe that it is not so; mystery there may be, but it is not chiefly mystery. I will even go so far as to assert that the problem had been solved in human thought before Christianity began. What I have to say about it now is ancient thinking confirmed by present-day experience.