The Epicurean dilemma has been often dealt with. I shall content myself with quoting Mr Bowen's remarks on the subject: "_Omnipotence and benevolence_ are apparently very simple and very comprehensive terms, though few are more vaguely used. The former means a power to do everything; but this does not include the ability to do two contradictory things at the same moment, or to accomplish any metaphysical impossibility. Thus, the Deity cannot cause two and two to make five, nor place two hills near each other without leaving a valley between them. The impossibility in such cases does not argue a defect of power, but an absurdity in the statement of the case to which the power is to be applied. A statement which involves a contradiction in terms does not express a limitation of ability, because in truth it expresses nothing at all; the affirmation and the denial, uttered in the same breath, cancel each other, and no meaning remains. All metaphysical impossibilities can be reduced to the formula, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same moment, as this would be an absurdity--that is, an absurd or meaningless statement. Thus, virtue cannot exist without free agency, because a free choice between good and evil is involved in the idea of _virtue_, so that the proposition means no more than this--that what contains freedom cannot be without freedom. We cannot choose between good and evil, unless good and evil are both placed before us--that is, unless we know what these words mean; and we cannot express our choice in action, unless we are able to act--that is, unless we have the power of doing either good or evil. In the dilemma quoted from Epicurus, a contradiction in terms is held to prove a defect of power, or to disprove omnipotence; the dilemma, therefore, is a mere logical puzzle, like the celebrated one of Achilles and the tortoise.