it everywhere; and secondly, the obvious imperfection of its highest
product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be. These things
cannot be reconciled with any such belief. On the contrary, they are
just the facts which support what I have been saying; they are our
authority for viewing the world as the outcome of our own misdeeds,
and therefore, as something that had better not have been. Whilst,
under the former hypothesis, they amount to a bitter accusation
against the Creator, and supply material for sarcasm; under the latter
they form an indictment against our own nature, our own will, and
teach us a lesson of humility. They lead us to see that, like the
children of a libertine, we come into the world with the burden of sin
upon us; and that it is only through having continually to atone for
this sin that our existence is so miserable, and that its end is
death.

There is nothing more certain than the general truth that it is the
grievous _sin of the world_ which has produced the grievous _suffering
of the world_. I am not referring here to the physical connection
between these two things lying in the realm of experience; my meaning
is metaphysical. Accordingly, the sole thing that reconciles me to the
Old Testament is the story of the Fall. In my eyes, it is the only
metaphysical truth in that book, even though it appears in the form of
an allegory. There seems to me no better explanation of our existence
than that it is the result of some false step, some sin of which
we are paying the penalty. I cannot refrain from recommending the
thoughtful reader a popular, but at the same time, profound treatise
on this subject by Claudius[1] which exhibits the essentially
pessimistic spirit of Christianity. It is entitled: _Cursed is the
ground for thy sake_.