CLAUSE VII
The term “evil” is relative: dirt, for instance, is well known to be only matter out of place; weeds are plants flourishing where they are not wanted; there are no weeds in botany, there are weeds in gardening; even disease is only one organism growing at the expense of another; ugliness is non-existent save to creatures with a sense of beauty, and is due to unsuitable grouping. Analysed into its elements, every particle of matter must be a miracle of law and order, and, in that sense, of beauty.
Recent discoveries in connexion with the internal structure of an atom, whereby the constituent particles are found to move in intricate and ascertainable orbits—leading to a new science of atomic astronomy—emphasise this assertion to an extent barely credible ten years ago.
Even what can be called filth—that is to say material which, to the casual observer, or when encountered at unsuitable times, is disgusting—may to an investigator, or under other circumstances, be of the highest interest; and may even arouse a sense of admiration, by reason of manifest subservience to function.
Many social evils are due to human folly and stupidity, and will cease when the race has risen to a standard already attained by individuals.
Excessive hunger and starvation are manifestly evils of a negative character: they are merely a deficiency of supply: they have no business to exist in a civilised and organised community. Famine and pestilence can be checked by applications of science.
Pain is an awful reality, when highly developed organisms are subjected to wounds and poison and disease. Some kinds of pain have been wickedly inflicted by human beings on each other in the past, and other kinds may be removed or mitigated by the progress of discovery in the future. Physiologically the nerve processes involved are well worthy of study and control. Premature avoidance of pain would have been dangerous to the race, and not really helpful to the individual: but great advances in this direction are now foreshadowed. Already surgical operations can be conducted painlessly; and a time is foreshadowed when, through hypnosis, excessive and useless torture can be shut off from consciousness, by intelligence and will; somewhat as the random leakage of an electric supply can be checked. All this will come in due time:
“The best is yet to be,
The last of life for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand