XXX

GOOD AND EVIL

 

"STEPHEN

 

" I asked, "what of good and evil?"

 

"Christ," answered Stephen, "said, 'Resist not evil.' Frankly, when I was on earth and used to go to Sunday-school, this saying of Christ's was a thing that puzzled me. For as a small boy there were so many things I was told I must not do that at least half of my time was taken in resisting the temptation of them. It may not be a psychological fact of much dignity, but certainly it is an every-day boy-fact that the things a youngster is told he ought not to do immediately become the only anticipatory joys of existence. When I grew older and came to an understanding that gave me the power to differentiate between the so-called good and evil of the world, I confess that even then evil had a peculiar attraction. It was the unexplored country.

 

"I remember one day in freshman Bible class our instructor's taking up Christ's phrase. This instructor was a man of more than one glimpse. He not only perceived truths, but he joyously lived them. He was so busy doing the things that were positive—positive for the upbuilding of his own character, positive in the way of example—that I don't believe he ever had time for a negative thought. I remember he told us that these old words, resist not evil, meant simply that the devil still finds work for idle hands to do.

 

"Since I have come here I have grown to realize what the scientists of earth have known, in their hearts at least, for some time—namely, that there is no actual evil, just as there is no actual state of cold or actual state of darkness. Cold is merely the absence of heat; darkness the absence of light. Evil is the non-development of good."

 

Now it was the very day Stephen began his discussion of good and evil—or, as he says, the negative and the positive— that Joan had asked me to bring home to her a certain package; and I was well on my homeward way that evening when it occurred to me I had left Joan's package lying on my desk. A shower was coming up and I was umbrella-less.

 

Here, then, was a genuine evil, nothing of far-reaching concern, yet to me an all-round annoyance. What was the evil? Was it not, to use Stephen's word, simply a negative? I had forgotten something I should have remembered.

 

When memory of the package did come it was accompanied by two thoughts. The first of these was that it would be a task to walk back through the rain. The other was that Joan had planned on my bringing the package, and, unless she received it, her affairs for the next day would be put awry. A momentary debate went on within me. Then, in the exercise of my free will, I faced about, trudged off through the downpour, got the package, and so preserved Joan's morrow. And I had the pleasant realization of having overcome evil. But had I resisted evil? Certainly I had not. The incident, slight though it is, seems illustrative, from the viewpoint of Stephen's philosophy, of all those things that the world calls evil and of that saying of Christ's that enjoins non-resistance.

 

There are many persons, of course, who, misinterpreting the meaning of Christ's injunction, not only refuse to resist evil, but also to fight for the good. They miss the entire point; for, except as one does fight for the positive, he must inevitably fritter his energies away resisting the very negatives to which he fancies he is closing his eyes.

 

"Is this not so, Stephen?" I asked.

 

"But surely," answered Stephen. "It is the men who fight for the positive that count. They are the men who in business realize the hopelessness of fighting against inefficiency and the necessity of fighting for efficiency. They are the men who in medicine remove the cause of an epidemic. They are the soldiers who enthrone right, by force if need be.

 

"Truly there is little new in what I tell you of the negative character of evil. The scientist knows even more than is on the surface of the bald statement that what the world calls evil is only lack of development. He knows, for example, that as evolution progresses negatives disappear and positives rule; he knows that the goal is development so complete that there will be neither negative nor positive, but simply the height of development."

 

Well, it may be, as Stephen says, that his view of good and evil contains little that is new. Yet—for me, at least—he has made the world's sorrow easier of understanding; and, I think, he has pointed out a way to make it easier of alleviation.

 

Let me illustrate. Rather blindly men have been preaching for a space of years that the criminal should not be punished, but given instead an opportunity to assume a right relation with society. Frequently the voice of the preacher has been drowned by those who, demanding an eye for an eye, would fight negatives with negatives. And the preacher himself has not always been coherent.

 

Stephen classifies human negatives in this fashion:

 

1. That lack of development which is qualitative; in other words, that fundamental lack which distinguishes a high degree of consciousness from a low degree.

 

2. That lack of development which is quantitative, the quality in the individual case being good, but put to limited use by the free will of its possessor.

 

Of the first of these Stephen said: "Men and women of low quality are prone to evil as the sparks fly upward. Yet compare them with persons of high degree and what do you find? No difference in kind. All are simply men and women. The one class has attained a higher degree of development—that is the only difference. Thousands of years ago the men and women of your present who appear most negative would have appeared most positive. And even to-day, if you were to set them down in a tribe of cannibals, they would by comparison shine as saints.

 

"What is society's duty to those whose quality in contrast to the mean of society's consciousness seems negative and evil? Surely that part of the whole of consciousness represented by men and women of high degree must aid parts of the whole lower than itself in finding opportunity to develop quantity. And this opportunity should be broader than any the low degree, unaided, could create for itself.

 

"Nonetheless you should remember that low degrees are low. Though society shall not wreak revenge upon the criminal of low quality, it must often assume full responsibility for him, to the extent, if necessary, of life control."

 

Of those negatives which result from failure on the part of an individual to develop quantity in accordance with his quality, Stephen said:

 

"The person of high quality whose quantity is negative may be the victim of economic conditions. Or he may be the victim of a will weak from disuse or misguided by false reasoning.

"That day should be hastened when economic conditions shall be positive. In the mean time the victim of economic negatives should, when his evil-doing overtakes him, be aided, not crushed. When faulty volition brings a person of good quality into collision with society the problem is individual in its solution; guidance is needed."

"Stephen," I said, "the other day two young fellows, convicted of murder, were executed. What of capital punishment?"

"I know of those boys," answered Stephen. "One was—he still lives—a primary grade of human consciousness. The other was and is of good quality, but undeveloped quantity. Both should have been given their opportunity on earth to develop that degree of quantity which would have fulfilled their quality. He who was of primary human consciousness would have found his best opportunity under constant restraint—life­imprisonment you call it—a harsh term, and often, as you practise it, a harsher thing. Had the other young fellow, he of good quality, been given opportunity and help, together with increasing freedom as he took advantage of that help, he might have been saved for the gathering unto himself of much quantity."

 

Is it clear? Do Stephen's words mean what I think they mean? The reformer in his fervor has been tempted to pamper the criminal. The conservative has shouted, "Vengeance is mine." Is it not merely a case of both being right and both being wrong? Is it not the glory of Stephen's message that the truth can be separated from the untruth?

 

"Stephen," I said, "there is no hell?"

 

"But there is," he answered. "The freewill degree of consciousness is its own judge. We make our own hell. Yet to the soul imprisoned in the torment of its own regrets, its own remorse, its own repentance, I say this: Regret is vain. The past is dead; it cannot leave a sear, big or little, on that quality of consciousness which has been vouchsafed an individual. 'Rust cannot empale the quality of gold.'