His own views of the Creator
seem to me to be a more evident degeneration. He
declares that looking round at Nature he can see nothing
but ruthlessness and brutality. "Either the Creator is
not all-powerful, or else He is not all-good," says he.
"Either He can stop these atrocities and won't, in which
case He is not all-good; or else He would stop them but
can't, in which case He is not all-powerful." It was a
difficult dilemma for a man who professes to stick to
reason to get out of. Of course, if you plead faith, you
can always slip out of anything. I was forced to get
behind a corner of that buckler with which you have so
often turned my own thrusts. I said that the dilemma
arose from our taking it for granted that that which
seemed evil really was EVIL. "It lies with you to
prove that it isn't," said he. "We may hope that it
isn't," said I. "Wait until some one tells you that you
have cancer of the pyloric end of the stomach," said he;
and he shouted it out again every time I tried to renew
the argument.
But in all soberness, I really do think, Bertie, that
very much which seems to be saddest in life might be very
different if we could focus it properly. I tried to give
you my views about this in the case of drink and
immorality. But physically, I fancy that it applies more
obviously than it does morally. All the physical evils
of life seem to culminate in death; and yet death, as I
have seen it, has not been a painful or terrible process.
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