der of the
world, this order cannot be friendly to evil or indifferent between evil
and good, any more than a body which is convulsed by poison is friendly
to it or indifferent to the distinction between poison and food.

Again, if we confine our attention to the hero, and to those cases where
the gross and palpable evil is not in him but elsewhere, we find that
the comparatively innocent hero still shows some marked imperfection or
defect,--irresolution, precipitancy, pride, credulousness, excessive
simplicity, excessive susceptibility to sexual emotions, and the like.
These defects or imperfections are certainly, in the wide sense of the
word, evil, and they contribute decisively to the conflict and
catastrophe. And the inference is again obvious. The ultimate power
which shows itself disturbed by this evil and reacts against it, must
have a nature alien to it. Indeed its reaction is so vehement and
'relentless' that it would seem to be bent on nothing short of good in
perfection, and to be ruthless in its demand for it.

To this must be added another fact, or another aspect of the same fact.
Evil exhibits itself everywhere as something negative, barren,
weakening, destructive, a principle of death. It isolates, disunites,
and tends to annihilate not only its opposite but itself. That which
keeps the evil man[14] prosperous, makes him succeed, even permits him
to exist, is the good in him (I do not mean only the obviously 'moral'
good). When the evil in him masters the good and has its way, it
destroys other people through him, but it also destroys _him_. At the
close of the struggle he has vanished, and has left behind him nothing
that can stand. What remains is a family, a city, a country, exhausted,
pale and feeble, but alive through the principle of good which animates
it; and, within it, individuals who, if they have not the brilliance or
greatness of the tragic character, still have won our respect and
confidence. And the inference would seem clear. If existence in an order
depends on good, and if the presence of evil is hostile to such
existence, the inner being or soul of this order must be akin to good.

These are aspects of the tragic world at least as clearly marked as
those which, taken alone, suggest the idea of fate. And the idea which
they in their turn, when taken alone, may suggest, is that of an order
which does not indeed award 'poetic justice,' but which reacts through
the necessity of its own 'm