Evolution: Its nature, its evidence, and its relation to religious thought

by Joseph LeConte

3. Organic Evil—Disease.—But there is a more dreadful form of evil than that which results from external physical nature—an evil far more subtle and difficult to understand, and therefore to conquer. I mean internal organic evil—disease in its diversified forms and with its attendant weakness and suffering, inscrutable often in its causes, insidious in its approaches, contagious, infectious, spreading from house to house, carrying suffering and death in its course, and leaving sorrow and desolation behind. Is there any remedy which can transmute this evil into good? There is. It is again knowledge—knowledge of the laws, and power over the forces, of organic nature. Is it not evident that complete knowledge of the laws of health and the causes of disease would put this evil also under our feet? Is it not evident that a perfect knowledge of the laws of health, and a perfect living according to these laws, would so entirely subdue this evil that men would no longer die except by natural decay or by accident? Is it not evident, also, that the race will not attain this knowledge unless it be forced upon us by the necessity of avoiding the dread evil of disease?

Now suppose, again, this ideal attained, suppose this dread evil subdued by complete knowledge, and again from our elevated intellectual position we look back over the ground. Shall we call that evil which was the necessary condition of our intellectual elevation? Evil, doubtless, it seems to us individuals who have suffered and are still suffering through our ignorance; but is such individual suffering or even individual death to be weighed against the psychical elevation of the individual and evolution of the race? Ought not the individual to be willing to suffer thus much vicariously for the race? Is not this seeming evil also a real good?

May we not, then, confidently generalize? May we not say that all physical evil is good in its general effect—that every law of Nature is beneficent in its general operation, and, if sometimes evil in its specific operation, is so only through our ignorance? Partly by survival of the fittest, and partly by intelligence, man, like other animals, brings himself in accord with the laws of Nature, and thus appropriates the good and avoids the evil, and Nature becomes beneficent only. But, also unlike any other animal, man by rational knowledge makes the laws of Nature his servants, and uses them for his own purposes, thus increasing his power and elevating the plane of his life.

4. Moral Evil.—But there is still another form of evil, the most dreadful of all. This one may be called the evil, in some sense, the only evil. It is that of which all other forms are but the shadows cast backward and downward along the course of evolution and on lower stages of existence. This consummation of all evil is sin—moral disease—more dreadfully contagious and deadly than any organic disease. What shall we say now? Is there any rational explanation of this evil? Is there any possible-reason or excuse for an all-wise, all-powerful Ruler afflicting man alone of all His creatures with this greatest of all evils? In all other cases, the individual and the race sacrifice themselves for a time physically for the sake of final spiritual elevation; but this is spiritual debasement. In all other cases, there is a sacrifice in the course in order to attain the goal, but this is a missing of the goal itself. Is there any view which mitigates this evil, any philosophic alchemy which can transmute this evil into good? Age after age the human mind has prostrated itself in helpless paralysis before this problem. Most thinkers have been content to say, “Thou hast ordered it so. Thou art good. It must be right.” But many, and among them some of the best minds, have said, “Either God is not all-good, or else not all-wise, or else not all-powerful, or else there is no God at all.” Does evolution shed any light on this dread problem? I believe it does.

We have said that all other evils are but shadows of this one, cast backward and downward on earlier stages of evolution and lower forms of existence. But from the evolution point of view these earlier and lower forms of evil are rather to be regarded as foreshadowings of the reality to come. They are but earlier and lower stages of the evolution of the same thing—embryonic conditions of the now full-grown evil. If so, then the same law must apply here also, though, as we shall see, with a difference. Here, also, the individual as well as the race finds himself surrounded by what seems an evil environment, against which he must struggle. The spirit of man is inclosed and conditioned by a lower environment, which he must subdue or perish. Here, then, is again a deadly conflict: “a law in the members warring against the law of the spirit, and bringing it into captivity”; a law of selfism warring against the law of love, and bringing it into subjection; solicitations to debasement on the one hand, and solicitations to wrong others on the other. How shall it be overcome? What is the remedy? Again I answer, Knowledge of and conformity to the laws of the moral world. But, as in other cases, so in this: this knowledge of and conformity to law, which is the true goal of humanity, will not be attained unless it is forced upon us by necessity and in self-defense—i. e., by evil.

Now suppose, once more, this knowledge and conformity be complete, and the ideal of humanity be attained, and from this final and highest position we look back over the whole ground. Shall that be called evil which from the very nature of a moral being and the laws of evolution was obviously the necessary condition of attaining the goal? Shall we not from this final position call it a good in disguise? Evil, doubtless, it seems to us who suffer and stumble and mayhap fall by the way; but shall the mishap of the individual be weighed as an equivalent against the evolution of the race and the attainment of its goal?

Ah! there is the rub. It is all well enough to talk of sacrificing the physical individual to the race, but not so the spiritual. If we believe in the immortality of the human spirit, if we do indeed stand related to God in the manner explained in [Chapter IV], then moral evil in the individual has an entirely peculiar and an eternal significance—then the individual human spirit has an infinite worth and can not be sacrificed to the race; for the evolution of the race itself is only in order to the perfecting of individual human souls. What shall we say now? I answer: The sacrifice is not necessary. There is in the realm of morals alone a way of escape—a saving element which redeems the individual without violating the law. Let me explain.

It will, I think, be admitted by all that innocence and virtue are two very different things. Innocence is a pre-established, virtue a self-established, harmony of spiritual activities. The course of human development, whether individual or racial, is from innocence through more or less discord and conflict to virtue. And virtue completed, regarded as a condition, is holiness, as an activity, is spiritual freedom. Not happiness nor innocence but virtue is the goal of humanity. Happiness will surely come in the train of virtue, but if we seek primarily happiness we miss both. Two things must be borne steadily in mind: virtue is the goal of humanity; virtue can not be given, it must be self-acquired.

Now we have already seen that in all evil the remedy, which not only cures it but transmutes it into good, is knowledge of law and conformity of conduct thereto—a true science and a successful art—in a word, knowledge of the laws of God and obedience to these laws. In the physical world ignorance of these laws is necessarily fatal, but not so in the moral world. Ignorance here is not necessarily fatal though dangerous. By the very nature of a moral being, the essential thing is not knowledge but character or virtue—the will to know and the effort to obey. In the physical realm, knowledge is the goal; in the moral realm, knowledge is only in order to virtue. Therefore, in the case of the individual struggling with moral evil within and without, the victory is always in his power. If he fails, it is his own fault. His utmost effort in this field must be successful, because the result is not external, but internal and in the realm of moral freedom. The spirit of man is self-acting and in some sense, though not absolutely, self-existing, and can not be ruined except by its own act. In the moral world, where the goal is not knowledge but character, attainment must be in proportion to honest endeavor in the right spirit.

Evil, then, has its roots in the necessary law of evolution. It is a necessary condition of all progress, and pre-eminently so of moral progress. But some will ask, “Why could not man have been made a perfectly pure, innocent, happy being, unplagued by evil and incapable of sin?” I answer: The thing is impossible even to omnipotence, because it is a contradiction in terms. Such a being would also be incapable of virtue, would not be a moral being at all, would not in fact be man. We can not even conceive of a moral being without freedom to choose. We can not even conceive of virtue without successful conflict with solicitations to debasement. But these solicitations are so strong and so often overcome us, that we are prone to regard the solicitations themselves as essential evil instead of our weak surrender to them.