Once more, then. Although there may be undue simplification of the complex, there is also an undue complication of the simple; it is easy to invent unnecessary problems, to manufacture gratuitous difficulties, to lose our way in a humanly constructed and quite undivine fog. But the way is really simple, and when the fog lifts and the sunshine appears, all becomes clear and we proceed without effort on our way: the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. The way, the truth, and the life are all one. Reality is always simple; it is concrete and real and expressible. Our customary view of the commonest objects is not indeed the last word, nay, rather, it is the first word, as to their nature; but it is a true word as far as it goes. Analysing a liquid into a congeries of discrete atoms does not destroy or weaken or interfere with its property or fluidity. Analysing an atom into electrons does not destroy the atom. Reducing matter to electricity, or to any other etherial substratum, does not alter the known and familiarly utilised properties of a bit of wood or iron or glass, in the least; no, nor of a bit of bone or feather or flesh. Study may superadd properties imperceptible to the plain man, but the plain man's concrete and simple view serves for ordinary purposes of daily life.
And God's view, strange to say, must be more akin to that of the plain man than to that of the philosopher or statistician. That is how it comes that children are near the kingdom of heaven. It is not likely that God really makes abstractions and "geometrises." All those higher and elaborate modes of expression are human counters; and the difficulties of dealing with them are human too. Only in early stages do things require superhuman power for their apprehension; they are easy to grasp when they are really understood. They come out then into daily life; they are not then matters of intellectual strain; they can appeal to our sense of beauty; they can affect us with emotion and love and appreciation and joy; they can enter into poetry and music, and constitute the subject-matter of Art of all kinds. The range of art and of enjoyment must increase infinitely with perfect knowledge. This is the atmosphere of God. "Where dwells enjoyment, there is He." We are struggling upwards into that atmosphere slowly and laboriously. The struggle is human, and for us quite necessary, but the mountain top is serene and pure and lovely, and its beauty is in nowise enhanced by the efforts of the exhausted climber, as he slowly wins his way thither.
Yet the effort itself is of value. The climber, too, is part of the scheme, and his upward trend may be growth and gain to the whole. It adds interest, though not beauty. Do not let us think that the universe is stagnant and fixed and settled and dull, and that all its appearance of "going on" is illusion and deception. I would even venture to urge that, ever since the grant to living creatures of free will, there must be, in some sense or other, a real element of contingency,—that there is no dulness about it, even to the Deity, but a constant and aspiring Effort.
Let us trust our experience in this also. The Universe is a flux, it is a becoming, it is a progress. Evolution is a reality. True and not imaginary progress is possible. Effort is not a sham. Existence is a true adventure. There is a real risk.
There was a real risk about creation—directly it went beyond the inert and mechanical. The granting of choice and free will involved a risk. Thenceforward things could go wrong. They might be kept right by main force, but that would not be playing the game, that would not be loyalty to the conditions.
As William James says: A football team desire to get a ball to a certain spot, but that is not all they desire; they wish to do it under certain conditions and overcome inherent difficulties—else might they get up in the night and put it there.
So also we may say, Good is the end and aim of the Divine Being; but not without conditions. Not by compulsion. Perfection as of machinery would be too dull and low an achievement—something much higher is sought. The creation of free creatures who, in so far as they go right, do so because they will, not because they must,—that was the Divine problem, and it is the highest of which we have any conception.
Yes, there was a real risk in making a human race on this planet. Ultimate good was not guaranteed. Some parts of the Universe must be far better than this, but some may be worse. Some planets may comparatively fail. The power of evil may here and there get the upper hand: although it must ultimately lead to suicidal destructive failure, for evil is pregnant with calamity.