old the spring of the determinations of the
Infinite Being, were an attempt so far exceeding our capacity, that it
is impossible to point out any means whatever by which it could be made.
This would be to conceive of God in His eternal essence, independently
of His relation to the universe, to nature, and to our reason. I do not
say merely that the attempt would be fruitless; I say that we have no
means of attempting this metaphysical adventure. But might we not, in
looking at the work of God, discern in it the evidence of its design?
This is a process which we often follow in regard to our
fellow-creatures. Do we wish to know the object which a man has in view
in his labor? He may himself disclose that object to us directly in
words, or we may endeavor to discover it. We watch him at work, and by
observing the way in which he proceeds we sometimes come to know what
his thoughts are, because we find ourselves in presence of the work of a
mind, and we ourselves are mind. Can we in the same way, by looking at
the universe, that grand work, succeed in discovering its end?

The way on which we are entering raises two objections, which proceed
from the difficulties felt by two classes of men of opposite views; and
our first business will be to rid ourselves of these preliminary
difficulties.

You will never succeed, it has been said to me, in proving the goodness
of God, because evil is in the world. I am not inventing, Gentlemen. A
letter containing this challenge has been addressed to me by one of
you. It is manifest, since we propose to ourselves to recognize in the
work the intention of the Worker, and since our thesis is the goodness
of the First Cause of the universe, that evil, in all its forms, sin,
pain, imperfection, is the main objection which can be addressed to us.
Evil is real; it is a sad and great reality; I am forward to acknowledge
it. Any system which would prove that evil does not exist, or, which
comes to the same thing, that evil is necessary, that good and evil in
short are of the same nature, is an impossible, I had almost said a
culpable, system. The strongest minds have worn themselves out in such
attempts with no result whatever. The great Leibnitz attempted an
enterprise of this nature. His system consisted in extenuating evil as
far as possible, and in pronouncing that amount of evil, of which he
could not dissemble the existence, to be necessary. He failed. The
strong intellectual armor of one