Is it not perfectly plain? So in any department of human
life, I care not what, trace it out, and you will find that precisely
the same principle is involved, and that you get results, not arbitrary
bestowal's of reward or punishment.
Now I must come having, I hope, made this sufficiently clear, though
after this fragmentary fashion to deal a little more with some of the
ethical sides of this question. I have had no end of persons tell me,
first and last, that it seemed to them that the universe could not be a
moral universe, that it was not governed fairly, that reward and
punishment were not meted out evenly to people; and they based their
criticism on statements of fact similar to those with which I have been
dealing.
Now let us look into the matter a little deeply; and let us see if we
can find any hint of light and guidance. I have had a person within a
week say to me, "I do not feel at all sure that it means much that
people get the moral results of their moral action in a particular
department of life. If a person becomes a little bit callous and hard,
wisely selfish and prudent, and so prospers in the affairs of this
life, I am not sure that he is not as well off as anybody, perhaps a
little better off, perhaps a little better off than a person who is
sensitive, and worries because he does not reach his ideals; and it is
possible that he serves the world after all quite as well." This is a
kind of criticism, I say, that has been made to me in the last week.
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