A little reflection ought to convince anyone that this is the true way to look at the question of evil. Instead of asking how evil came to be in the universe, we should recognise that nothing finite can exist without it. Infinity alone can know nothing of evil because its resources are illimitable and--if I may be permitted the expression--every need is supplied before it can be felt. Evil and good are not like two armies in deadly conflict with each other for the possession of the city of God. We ought not to say that when one is in the other is out, but rather when one _is_ the other is _not_. The very word "good" implies evil. One is positive and the other negative. Good only emerges in our experience in contrast with evil, and the ideal existence must be that in which good and evil are both transcended in the life eternal, when struggle and conflict are no more. In our present state of existence evil is necessary in order that we may know that there is such a thing as good, and therefore that we may realise the true nature of the life eternal. Look at that shadow on the pavement cast by the row of houses between your vision and the rising sun. Until the sun made his presence felt, you did not even know there was a shadow. Presently as the light giver climbs beyond and above this temporary barrier you will watch the shadow shrink and disappear. Where has it gone? If it were an entity in itself, it would have moved off somewhere else, but you are well aware that it has not done so, for it never had any real existence; real as it seemed, so real that you were able to give it a name, it never did more than show the place that needed to be filled with light. When the light came the shadow was swallowed up. So it is with every kind of evil, no matter what. Your perception of evil is the concomitant of your expanding finite consciousness of good. The moment you see a thing to be wrong you have affirmed that you know, however vaguely, what is required to put it right. Even when evil comes in the form of a calamity that lessens and diminishes your previous experience of good, as in an earthquake or a pestilence, this statement as to its true nature is in no way invalidated. It is not a thing in itself, it is only the perceived privation of what you know to be good, and which you know to be good because of the very presence of limitation, hindrance, and imperfection.