Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Problem of Evil: An Introduction to the Practical Sciences
The foregoing are the chief of what may be called the theo logical explanations of evil - those which look to a supernatural source and cause. In distinction from these we will instance what may be termed -the scientific explanations of evil. They do not assume to reach the -elise of its phenomena, believing that this is beyond the sphere of human knowledge. They exhibit the facts of individual and social life which give rise to the opposition between the good and the bad, and in general ising these facts attempt to find the proximate causes of the ills we experience. In this search, conducted upon such a principle, it is not to be expected that nature will be transcended. A super natural may be postulated, but it is an unknowable supernatural. The evil, that is made the subject of' science is the evil which is in nature and under 'this term are included the phenomena of mind both in their individual isolation and in their relations to other minds. It is my purpose In the present work to treat the problem of evil upon this method, being persuaded that much more sure and satisfactory results can be attained than by starting out from any of the theological hypotheses. In the course of our examina tion, however, we shall have occasion to comment upon some of these latter theories.
We will hence not stay to discuss the doctrines which have been brie?y mentioned in this chapter, but will proceed without further preface to analyse the theme. Of our discourse.
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