females amongst them as amongst cats, apes, and human beings. Your 'good
God' I do not know, and what I least comprehend in thinking it over
quietly is the circumstance that you distinguish a good and evil
principle in the world. If the All is indeed God, if God as the
scriptures teach, is goodness, and if besides him is nothing at all,
where is a place to be found for evil?"

"You talk like a school-boy," said Pentaur indignantly. "All that is,
is good and reasonable in itself, but the infinite One, who prescribes
his own laws and his own paths, grants to the finite its continuance
through continual renewal, and in the changing forms of the finite
progresses for evermore. What we call evil, darkness, wickedness, is in
itself divine, good, reasonable, and clear; but it appears in another
light to our clouded minds, because we perceive the way only and not the
goal, the details only, and not the whole. Even so, superficial
listeners blame the music, in which a discord is heard, which the harper
has only evoked from the strings that his hearers may more deeply feel
the purity of the succeeding harmony; even so, a fool blames the painter
who has colored his board with black, and does not wait for the
completion of the picture which shall be thrown into clearer relief by
the dark background; even so, a child chides the noble tree, whose fruit
rots, that a new life may spring up from its kernel. Apparent evil is
but an antechamber to higher bliss, as every sunset is but veiled by
night, and will soon show itself again as the red dawn of a new day."

"How convincing all that sounds!" answered the physician, "all, even the
terrible, wins charm from your lips; but I could invert your proposition,
and declare that it is evil that rules the world, and sometimes gives us
one drop of sweet content, in order that we may more keenly feel the
bitterness of life. You see harmony and goodness in everything. I have